I was about to make much the same point, only I'd put it this way : Scientific research is supposed to be a public good in the economic sense[0]. If it isn't d

I was about to make much the same point, only I'd put it this way : Scientific research is supposed to be a public good in the economic sense[0]. If it isn't done openly and transparently then it isn't and it most certainly shouldn't be publicly funded. This manifestly isn't how it works currently - see e.g. world v Elsevier et al - and this is really just a plea to retain the broken status quo. If researchers want their work to be of benefit solely or primarily to themselves or their paymasters - a violation of the Mertonian norms [1] - they can go work in industry. Incentives matter, of course and what's at the root of this is that scientists - no matter how much or how often they may insist otherwise - are just ordinary self interested human beings. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mertonian_norms https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mertonian_norms