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I'm not sure about how fair the whole system is, but if we assume the papers should be free, then a service where the papers are available is still reasonable t

• MrManatee 5y ago
  There's a lot of information, data, and software out there that is available to download for free. Yes there are hosting costs, but there are also people and organizations that are willing to pay them because they believe that it's worth it. I'm absolutely convinced that if copyrights weren't an issue, there would be enough governments, foundations, universities, corporations, and individuals willing to pay the costs of making scientific publications available to everyone. It wouldn't have to be a paid service.
• sellyme 5y ago
  > Someone needs to rent and service the servers, update the software, bandwidth costs money, etc.. Scientific papers use approximately zero bandwidth. As a point of reference, if I hosted such a website on my home internet connection I would be paying approximately 0.00013 cents per upload. Even users downloading millions of papers would cost me less than a coffee. Setting up and managing a proportionate payment system would cost more than just eating the bandwidth costs would.