What is not discussed and which seems to be blindly accepted by most of the academic community is the fact that what is described by Scopus as 'outlier behavior' (such an interesting term and concept which really means 'high achievers') looks to me as nothing more than simple monopolistic practice. Once again, the Scopus CSAB RADAR criteria for the removal of a journal is that the journal has expanded its market into other countries and regions, thus stepping on someone else's market share (Elsevier's?).
Can you image if General Motors told Tesla they cannot expand into China and sell cars? Or if Nokia or Siemens had told Apple they can't sell phones in Europe? Once again, as with the infamous Jeffery Beall and his 'Beall Lists', the world's academics are following the Pied Piper over the cliff into the competition destruction abyss. China has wised up to this madness and pulled the plug on the hypocrisy of it all.
After a careful examination of all the Scopus web pages and PDFs concerning the elimination (discontinuation) of journals which are already Scopus indexed, I can find nothing mentioned about them being predatory or unethical in some fashion or method. No, it all seems to revolve around a journal becoming bigger and moving into a market already occupied by someone else (see screen capture below). As Elsevier is purported to the world's largest purveyor of academic journals (who also happens to own one of the major indexing sources - Scopus), am I the only one here that sees the conflict of interests?
Years before, I commented to anyone who would listen that the Beall Lists had an agenda far beyond a Colorado librarian's stated purpose to find 'predatory Open Access journals and publishers'. In Beall's 'zeal' to police the academic journal community, he destroyed countless businesses along the way whose only crime had been they were becoming bigger and dangerously competitive to the old school 'paywall' publishers.
As everyone knows who is reading this, the very thing that Beall very effectively destroyed in newer and smaller publishers, is the same thing that Springer Nature is now selling for an insanely expensive $11,250 per paper (Open Access). This sadly made me laugh as I guess this somehow raises Springer Nature's valuation formula for either another potential IPO or their acquisition by yet another investor group.
Bottom line...nothing will ever change. Academic Publishing is a very big business which is not run by academics. Academics are hired to do the bidding and give the whole process the illusion of 'respectability', while the 'boardroom' folks drink expensive cognac and reap the massive profits. It is a business run by 'business tycoons' who buy and sell publishing concerns for profits in the billions, and they do not care who they step on along the way. If anyone is in doubt, read "How Robert Maxwell became 'the crook of the century' or the earlier Newsweek version.
Furthermore, when you see insane headlines about the world's worse software (Turnitin) being sold for $1.7 billion and the three failed attempts last year from Springer Nature to do a Euro 1 billion IPO, it all starts to make some sense. The Scopus CSAB academics are just pawns on the board....nothing more.
Plagiarism-detection firm to be sold for US$1.7 billion
Springer Nature to launch IPO next week, if markets hold
Springer Nature Said to Kick Off 1 Billion-Euro IPO This Month
BC Partners seeks to sell Springer Nature stake to itself
Springer Nature announces gold open access options for Nature journals from January 2021
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/11/24/nature-add-open-access-publishing-option-2021
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