We're there already, at least in my field. Many research groups and individuals do actually host copies of their papers on their own websites, whether or not t

We're there already, at least in my field. Many research groups and individuals do actually host copies of their papers on their own websites, whether or not the journals are officially OK with it. Failing that, most Ph.D. dissertations are available for free to the public through university websites. If you want to find out what a research group has been up to, the chapters in a group member's dissertation are often substantially the same as the paywalled journal articles with his name on them.