By focusing on cost, the article takes a page directly from the publishers’ playbook.
Precisely. To me, this comment also applies to the focus on replacing existing solutions, especially textbooks, but also any kind of content. OER is convenient as a label for a specific thing, related to licenses, but associated with cost (just like “free software” interpreted as no-cost instead of «libre»).
When I organized the Freeware Summit (later known as the Open Source Summit) in 1998, it was because I recognized that there were multiple communities like that, that their leaders had never met in person, and would benefit from talking about common problems and shaping a common story. And being a media company, we organized a press conference at the end of the day to get that story out. And sure enough, two months later, Linus Torvalds was on the cover of Forbes , with full-page pictures inside of Larry Wall, Richard Stallman, Brian Behlendorf, and others.
didn't realize "freeware" was used for a bit