Passage Summary: Since journal prices are way up and production costs are steady, the people making the journals must be making way more money.

Conclusion: Publishing scholarly journals is significantly more profitable now than it was in the past.

Reasoning: The prices libraries pay for these journals have risen sharply while the actual costs of publishing them have stayed the same.

Analysis: The argument assumes that 'profit' is a simple calculation of subscription price minus publishing cost, but it ignores other variables. To weaken this, we need to find a 'hidden' cost or a change in volume that eats up that extra revenue. For example, if the number of subscribers has plummeted, publishers might have to raise prices just to cover their fixed costs without actually seeing a rise in total profit. Look for an answer that introduces a new expense or a loss in total revenue.