? In my opinion, it is entirely possible for colleges and universities not to renew their contracts.
? The reason why I say "no renewal" is not simply a question of high subscription fee. The subscription fee is too high, and of course you may not be used to its price increase. Because the funds of colleges and universities are not blown by strong winds, research funds should still be used in the cutting edge. There are several more important reasons-
? First, colleges and universities can look for similar substitutes. Colleges and universities have two tasks, one is teaching, and the other is scientific research, both of which have to deal with periodical materials. Among all kinds of scientific research data in modern times, HowNet is only a point to provide periodical data, but it is not the only point. There are many other points, and substitutes can be used. For example, some databases provided by the state, the author now uses the database of philosophy and social sciences (full name: database of national academic journals of philosophy and social sciences). The author used to use HowNet, and later gradually switched to the database provided by this country for free use. I believe that more and more countries will provide such free resources. What's more gratifying is that this kind of free resources is more abundant.
? I also found a phenomenon recently, that is, the information of the 1980s can be found on this national platform, but not on HowNet. I'm talking about my own experience. The information I checked was about Ni Ruixuan, a famous female poet in Qing Dynasty, with the title "On Ni Ruixuan, a poet in Qing Dynasty". Recently, someone said in an article about Ni Ruixuan's research that only two articles involving Ni Ruixuan were found on Zhiwang, but no articles devoted to Ni Ruixuan were found. This shows that the resources of HowNet are still limited. Especially some time ago, some people came out to defend their rights and got compensation. Maybe HowNet removed a lot of unauthorized resources to avoid suspicion. A few years ago, I found some articles I wrote on HowNet, but I still spent money to download some. "Download your own articles at your own expense" is a normal phenomenon for HowNet, and it is also a criticized place and risk point. Of course, I don't have many articles myself, and I haven't thought about safeguarding rights. However, a recent search on HowNet found that my previous articles on the Internet were completely offline. I think this is not an isolated phenomenon. It can also be seen that its resources have to be discounted.
? Second, universities can make full use of the rich data resources of national and local comprehensive libraries. The digital library I am using now is the national digital library resources, as well as the digital library resources in this province, where the resources are very rich. It can basically meet the learning and scientific research needs of college students.
? Of course, not renewing the contract is not necessarily the best choice. As a special commodity, knowledge can be considered by both buyers and sellers from the perspective of "win-win". For example, businesses don't have to make huge profits at all, they need small profits but quick turnover, and they can sign long-term cooperation agreements with preferential prices; Universities can be allowed to establish data sharing alliances, that is, universities can jointly purchase data sharing and so on. Sit down and have a good talk, which is better than Jiang Taigong's fishing wish!
? Again, the above is just my own opinion! There are different views on this issue. Welcome to exchange views!