The foundational layers of ontological persistence (DOI/Zenodo) and identity stabilisation (ORCID) exhibit minimal structural conflict, functioning as open, non-proprietary protocols that democratise access to citability and attribution without gatekeeper rents or investor extraction. These strata operate as public utilities within the knowledge commons, their conflicts limited to technical interoperability rather than power asymmetries. Yet ascent to the algorithmic-visibility tier (Google Scholar) and especially the curated-prestige tier (Web of Science Core Collection, Scopus Q1) exposes the fault lines: commercial entities dominate the infrastructure that converts raw scholarly labour into stratified legitimacy. Investment funds emerge as the primary vector of conflict. RELX (Elsevier/Scopus parent) is publicly traded with dominant institutional holders including Vanguard, BlackRock, Capital International Investors and Morgan Stanley; Clarivate (Web of Science) is controlled by private-equity heavyweights such as Leonard Green & Partners (≈18 %), Exor N.V. and Clarkston Capital. These actors demand consistent high-margin returns—RELX routinely exceeds 38 % operating margins—structurally incentivising volume expansion, metric optimisation and selective indexing that privileges profitable titles. The result is a privatised reputational bank where publicly financed research generates private shareholder value through APCs, subscriptions and data analytics.
