TRB Attendees: "We want to be able to attend remotely, watching presentations and attending meetings.
TRB: "We want people to come and attend the conference in person".
TRB Non-Attendees: "The cost of attendance (transportation, hotel, opportunity cost of time) doesn't justify coming in person; remote meetings and webinars are a norm, and there is no reason you can't do them. Some dude with a laptop livestreamed what he attended, so it's technically feasible".
TRB: "We will no longer permit livestreaming, so there is more reason to come in person!"
TRB Non-Attendees: "Why are you doing this?"
TRB: "We signed a lease at the conference center, so we are locked in for the next ten years, and we need enough people to come to pay for it!".
TRB Non-Attendees & TRB Attendees: :|
TRB: "Also, the conference center Wi-Fi is too weak..."
TRB Non-Attendees: That seems like a conference-center problem. Are they having trouble supplying running water too? Can you not afford a cellular connection for four hours a day for five days?
TRB: "Also, the point of the conference is networking -- TRB is funded by gas-tax research funding, so we have to demonstrate value to DOT staff (who attend for free)".
TRB Attendees: "So we pay $800 in case DOT staff might want to talk to us?"
TRB: "And see cutting edge research presented in poster and panel sessions. And if an academic, present your own research. And if a DOT, present your own innovations. Oh, and sell things to the attendees, and sell things to people selling things to the other attendees. TRB relies a lot on conference sponsor funding, and sponsorship amounts are proportional to the size of our in-person audience--there is a reluctance to pay the same amount for sponsorship when there are only half as many attendees".
TRB Non-Attendees: "How about a half-price ticket, since we're not receiving a lot of the benefits of attendance?"
TRB: "Calibrating how much that ticket should cost, given its propensity to cannibalize our other revenue (tickets, sponsorships, political influence) just doesn't seem worth the risk".
TRB Non-Attendees: "Well, that means I'm not attending".
TRB: "That is a risk we can take -- we can quantify dollars needed in a way we can't quantify people who didn't attend. Attendance is already down post-COVID, so we can't risk it shrinking more".
TRB Non-Attendees: "The value of the alternatives (webinars) got better, so that's not unexpected".
TRB: "TRB committees, stop sponsoring webinars--we can't have people getting TRB benefits if they aren't coming to TRB".
TRB Committees: "But wait, I thought we were supposed to popularize and distribute research?"
TRB: "Yes, but not like that".
TRB Non-Attendees & TRB Attendees: :|
...
TRB: "We are having troubling finding sufficient reviewers for our papers!"
TRB Non-Attendees & TRB Attendees: :|
TRB Reviewers: "Seems like a bit of a waste, to do this review for something that's only going to be presented at a conference a few people can pay to attend, or a journal only a few people can pay to access. Why am I donating time to this again?"
TRB: "We are having trouble articulating a value proposition as well and are relying on academic norms of unpaid labor for peer review. That norm is collapsing and with it the number of peer reviewers and hence the quality of peer review- papers are only getting single reviewers".
TRB Reviewers: "Have you heard of a 'desk reject'? All the main academic journals do it; TRB's commitment to review everything is actually quite strange".
TRB: "Again, funded by gas tax money for research--TRB is an applied research organization. The thing your average DOT official submits aren't anything close to academic quality, but they don't need to be, because our intended end-users are DOT staff. They can be highly contextual and very niche.
TRB Reviewers: "Sounds like your model has been highjacked by academics using it to provide guaranteed and timely feedback on academic articles that aren't useful to your end-users".
TRB: "Yes, but it's so valuable for supporting early career researchers!"
TRB Reviewers: "Didn't you say your end user was a DOT staff member?"
TRB: "Everyone who gets accepted to present (panel or poster) has to register for TRB (albeit at reduced student price) and that does wonders for our bottom line and attendance numbers!"
/cynicism