I saw system logins for academic libraries shared for years on private forums before sci-hub got started. I doubt that sci-hub had trouble collecting willingly

I saw system logins for academic libraries shared for years on private forums before sci-hub got started. I doubt that sci-hub had trouble collecting willingly shared credentials. More than a decade ago I saw full journal collections circulated via forums and semi-private FTP sites or password protected archives on sites like rapidshare. There were obviously a number of scripted download/archival efforts initiated by different people. When I was a researcher I published articles in closed journals because that's just how the game is played. But the publishers can go to hell as far as I'm concerned. In public discussions I've occasionally seen professors take the publishers' side against open access or pirates. I've never seen graduate students be anything but grateful for easy access to articles. (Of course with this comment I am just begging for a contrarian graduate student to write an ode to the reader-pays model.)