George Monbiot is excoriating on the subject of academic publishers, and in particular their profits.
What we see here is pure rentier capitalism: monopolising a public resource then charging exorbitant fees to use it. Another term for it is economic parasitism. To obtain the knowledge for which we have already paid, we must surrender our feu to the lairds of learning.
With there being three big publishers, there is of course no monopoly as such, although of course one can argue that there is a cartel operating. With returns of 40%, one can make a good case that this is the case.
However, from where I am standing it looks more like yet another case of the state hosing down a private sector business with taxpayers' money. Lacking any incentive to reduce their costs it's hard to see the universities making any efforts to break the stranglehold of the big publishers - what's in it for them?