> An analysis of Sci-Hub’s server logs, published in Science in 2016, found its biggest users were people in Iran, India and China. Such middle-income countries

> An analysis of Sci-Hub’s server logs, published in Science in 2016, found its biggest users were people in Iran, India and China. Such middle-income countries do not qualify for the subsidies big publishers provide to users in the poorest nations, but their universities nevertheless may not be able to afford subscriptions. Not every downloader was cash-strapped, though. Americans were the fifth-biggest users. Let's be frank here, the people pirating these papers are capable of understanding them (to some extent or another), and being educated to the point of understanding new-ish papers necessarily implies that a relatively large amount of money is being spent on their education. This isn't entirely/primarily about money. If the main users of this site are using it to get around sanctions placed against their country, the site becomes far less sympathetic in my eyes.