In a society governed by the rule of law, nobody should have to defend their decision to avail themselves of the protections these laws offer. If large parts o

In a society governed by the rule of law, nobody should have to defend their decision to avail themselves of the protections these laws offer. If large parts of the population disagree with a business model, they have the collective power to change it. As a former scientist, I can't wait to desecrate Elsevier's grave. But I'm still uneasy about the prospect of people taking matters into their own hands simply because their technical capabilities are more advanced than those of their opponents. There are also journals, such as Science, that finance the valuable non-profit foundations publishing them. Of course, this is to a large extend the fault of scientists and university administrators themselves, because they have all the power to refuse to publish in for-profit closed-access publications (as they are apparently doing in Germany.) And the political process in the US is basically broken. But look at other examples of the same principle, and you might find one where you land on the other side: The Federal Reserve seems the safer bet vis-a-vis the libertarians that jumped on Bitcoin to topple it. Uber has a litany of problems from their "rule-breaking DNA". Or, for the political right: should "illegal" immigrants receive citizenship simply for evading border checks?