If universities were giving away knowledge, they wouldn't have much to sell. As another example, presumptively the only purpose of museums is to preserve and sh

If universities were giving away knowledge, they wouldn't have much to sell. As another example, presumptively the only purpose of museums is to preserve and share endangered things, yet they fight the hardest online to make it difficult to get anything out of them. Every museum and archive could put up torrents just like the IA and take as a duty to guide the public through these torrents, feel certain that they would be maintained forever through minimal effort, that their reach would be the widest possible, and that the insights that could be built from people studying that work would be exponential. But that would largely cut the museum out of the process, and the purpose of the museum is mainly to preserve the museum. Instead they hand write inscrutable dogshit interfaces that prioritize preventing any sort of download or mirroring over any other concern, especially searchability or organization. Museums started as wealthy individual collectors bragging with their personal collections to get clout, or as attractions in the manner of theme parks constructed to get people to pay admissions fees. We only mistake them for charities because it's easy to trick us into subsidizing them through tax. These are vehicles for people's lucrative careers. People with the kinds of institutionalized minds who can't figure out how not to work for elsevier for free. Upper middle-class people solely motivated by personal achievement. Museums are far more selfless than universities.