> Publishers do this with research papers, no problem. Are you kidding? What's the first complaint you hear whenever a news article based on (and most likely d

> Publishers do this with research papers, no problem. Are you kidding? What's the first complaint you hear whenever a news article based on (and most likely distorted from) a new scientific study goes on Hacker News? "I'd love to look at the original study, but it's behind a paywall." Moreover, have you ever seen the à la carte prices of journal articles on these sites? Over $30 per article in many cases! The number of citations in an average journal article is in the dozens, not to mention the articles read but not cited. They might get a few suckers or truly desperate people to pay the à la carte price, but IMO the real purpose of those prices is to keep university libraries and corporations paying for already ruinously-priced journal subscriptions since paying for individual articles would bankrupt most research groups in short order. This is how I fear a subscription-based model would actually work if it became more widespread -- you would end up paying hundreds of dollars a month to read the articles in Hacker News. The ability of advertising to support a habit of reading articles from thousands of sites is one of the great benefits of the internet. In fact, I would enthusiastically support an ad-supported version of Elsevier if it meant I didn't have to pay for individual articles or a subscription, even if the ads were as intrusive as those on 4chan or The Pirate Bay.