well, maybe. [paywall'ed access to information] means people die, IF the said information would still be discoverable under an open access system. closed jour

well, maybe. [paywall'ed access to information] means people die, IF the said information would still be discoverable under an open access system. closed journals fill an important purpose in the ecosystem -- they provide friction[1] through cost, peer review and filter. it raises the bar for publication. it also means that without this aggregation and filtering mechanism, we wouldn't be able to find the important needles in the haystack, and that means people die. go figure. [1] seth godin on friction http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/05/friction-saves-the-medium.html http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/05/friction-sav... (i'm an engineer, i'm speculating)