To be honest the distinction between a sham scientific society and a real one feels blurry to me. I was advised to join IEEE hoping that at some point they'll give me an award or title for my CV. But you pay thousands of $ over a career for this.
The claim is that these societies represent members' interests. Maybe that's partly true, but the main example I know of from the IEEE is that they lobby against publishing reform that would make science better and reduce costs wasted on publishing.
They're also bureaucracies that serve themselves foremost. It takes the membership dues of around 10,000 members just to pay the $1.1m salary of the executive director.
@neuralreckoning
Dan
I think it is common, across human society, for things like IEEE to be things that , roughly speaking, work to increase the salary of the CEO
a clear example is farmer milk co ops in the Northeast, started by dairy farmers so they could make money, the co ops are now like IEEE
also, you can look up salaries on the IRS form 990
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/131656633
IMO< the salary of the CEO is obscene
yrs
Institute Of Electrical And Electronics Engineers Inc, fiscal year ending Dec. 2024