4 ms·

I have to read a lot of papers for work. Sometimes 2 or 3 a day. Often when I find one I'm interested in, they want $60 to read the one paper. If I have to read

I have to read a lot of papers for work. Sometimes 2 or 3 a day. Often when I find one I'm interested in, they want $60 to read the one paper. If I have to read one paper a day, that's about $20,000 a year just to stay up to date with the science. That's ridiculous. Thankfully someone is breaking down these barriers to science.

deleted 1y ago
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SamuelAdams 1y ago
Assuming you are in the States, it would be cheaper to enroll in one course a year and use the universities library system to get the papers you need. What always bothered me about those though is their terribly clunky UI, dozens of redirects, weird auth flows, and more.
- throwaway48476 1y ago
  Piracy is a service problem. I also have access through university but never use it due to jank.
  - raffael_de 1y ago
    I sometimes don't even bother checking if a movie is on Netflix and instead just go "elsewhere" I know I'll find it for sure. Precisely up until not too long ago Netflix wouldn't even grant me as a Linux user FullHD resolution (despite paying for it). We're at a point where for many artists it isn't about having your work stolen or bought, but rather fading into obscurity versus someone enjoying what you created.
    - igleria 1y ago
      > until not too long ago what changed? I'm tired of having to use the ps5 as a media player :/
      - raffael_de 1y ago
        Can't say for certain, but it seems like I'm now getting the promised resolution. I remember once having set some DRM-relevant setting in about:config - but not for my current setup IIRC. Also am a proud Firefox user but am using Chrome for Netflix - might be part of the "solution".
  - yupyupyups 1y ago
    That's not the only issue here. Publicly funded papers should be freely available.
- megaloblasto 1y ago
  I still had the same problem as a student at a major state school in the usa. Most schools don't subscribe to all the journals. I think I had IEEE and a few more, but more of the time they were paywalled.
kleiba 1y ago
Replace "paper" with anything else you consume in your everyday life. I know it's an unpopular opinion, but to me, if there's something offered to you for a certain price, and you're not ready to pay that price, the alternative should be to either get something comparable that's cheaper (hardly possible with scientific papers) or, unfortunately, abstain from getting that thing at all. I don't see how "what they're charging is ridiculous, and the money isn't even going to the authors, so it's okay for me to get the papers through sci-hub" is morally justified. Independent of the above: if it's for work, your employer should pay for the paper access (unless you're self-employed, of course).
- ahoka 1y ago
  Science brings humanity forward, your Netflix subscription does not. Simple as that. The former should not be the subject of economic rent.
  - SkyBelow 1y ago
    Calling this economic rent, if anything, underplays the issue. The economics in play appear worse than what rent normally covers. The science is funded by other sources, often from the groups which want access, the scientists are not paid and many have to pay to publish. Reviewers are rarely if ever paid. Public ability to peruse science, something that is already limited by the difficulty of understanding the papers, is made far worse by the price tag. The value provided seems to mainly be some name recognition that has fed a publish or perish model that is arguably detrimental to science research at scale. All considered, calling it economic rent appears too charitable an interpretation.
  - kleiba 1y ago
    It does not matter if it should or shouldn't. Since someone else brought up insulin before, you could also argue that all medication should be free - alas it isn't. It is totally fine to object the status quo of certain aspects of life or society. But in a democracy, the right way to go about changing them is not to just simply take what you can.
sneak 1y ago
I agree that that is ridiculous, but for many definitions of “for work”, $20k/year is well within the low end of “cost of doing business”. I spend that much on computer hardware, and again that much on cloud services, and again that much on airfare each year, and I’m a one-person shop with very high margins. Services are also a supply chain.
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dkiebd 1y ago
I assume those papers are integral for your business. A $20k/year business expense is not really ridiculous. You think it is ridiculous because you can pirate it and get it for free. They are bytes and bytes are worthless or something.
- mistercheph 1y ago
  It just depends on what kind of society you want to live in, one where information flows freely, or one where taxes can be levied against the entire society’s access to information, and public funds are used to protect the tax-levying middle men, and to subsidize the discovery and production of valuable information. And obviously, for most individuals and businesses worldwide 20k USD/year is an insane expense, the fact that big moneybags that could have easily paid might get to come along for the ride is a small acceptable price to pay for making information universally accessible.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

SamuelAdams 1y ago

Assuming you are in the States, it would be cheaper to enroll in one course a year and use the universities library system to get the papers you need. What always bothered me about those though is their terribly clunky UI, dozens of redirects, weird auth flows, and more.

throwaway48476 1y ago
Piracy is a service problem. I also have access through university but never use it due to jank.
- raffael_de 1y ago
  I sometimes don't even bother checking if a movie is on Netflix and instead just go "elsewhere" I know I'll find it for sure. Precisely up until not too long ago Netflix wouldn't even grant me as a Linux user FullHD resolution (despite paying for it). We're at a point where for many artists it isn't about having your work stolen or bought, but rather fading into obscurity versus someone enjoying what you created.
  - igleria 1y ago
    > until not too long ago what changed? I'm tired of having to use the ps5 as a media player :/
    - raffael_de 1y ago
      Can't say for certain, but it seems like I'm now getting the promised resolution. I remember once having set some DRM-relevant setting in about:config - but not for my current setup IIRC. Also am a proud Firefox user but am using Chrome for Netflix - might be part of the "solution".
- yupyupyups 1y ago
  That's not the only issue here. Publicly funded papers should be freely available.
megaloblasto 1y ago
I still had the same problem as a student at a major state school in the usa. Most schools don't subscribe to all the journals. I think I had IEEE and a few more, but more of the time they were paywalled.

kleiba 1y ago

Replace "paper" with anything else you consume in your everyday life. I know it's an unpopular opinion, but to me, if there's something offered to you for a certain price, and you're not ready to pay that price, the alternative should be to either get something comparable that's cheaper (hardly possible with scientific papers) or, unfortunately, abstain from getting that thing at all. I don't see how "what they're charging is ridiculous, and the money isn't even going to the authors, so it's okay for me to get the papers through sci-hub" is morally justified. Independent of the above: if it's for work, your employer should pay for the paper access (unless you're self-employed, of course).

ahoka 1y ago
Science brings humanity forward, your Netflix subscription does not. Simple as that. The former should not be the subject of economic rent.
- SkyBelow 1y ago
  Calling this economic rent, if anything, underplays the issue. The economics in play appear worse than what rent normally covers. The science is funded by other sources, often from the groups which want access, the scientists are not paid and many have to pay to publish. Reviewers are rarely if ever paid. Public ability to peruse science, something that is already limited by the difficulty of understanding the papers, is made far worse by the price tag. The value provided seems to mainly be some name recognition that has fed a publish or perish model that is arguably detrimental to science research at scale. All considered, calling it economic rent appears too charitable an interpretation.
- kleiba 1y ago
  It does not matter if it should or shouldn't. Since someone else brought up insulin before, you could also argue that all medication should be free - alas it isn't. It is totally fine to object the status quo of certain aspects of life or society. But in a democracy, the right way to go about changing them is not to just simply take what you can.

sneak 1y ago

I agree that that is ridiculous, but for many definitions of “for work”, $20k/year is well within the low end of “cost of doing business”. I spend that much on computer hardware, and again that much on cloud services, and again that much on airfare each year, and I’m a one-person shop with very high margins. Services are also a supply chain.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

dkiebd 1y ago

I assume those papers are integral for your business. A $20k/year business expense is not really ridiculous. You think it is ridiculous because you can pirate it and get it for free. They are bytes and bytes are worthless or something.

mistercheph 1y ago
It just depends on what kind of society you want to live in, one where information flows freely, or one where taxes can be levied against the entire society’s access to information, and public funds are used to protect the tax-levying middle men, and to subsidize the discovery and production of valuable information. And obviously, for most individuals and businesses worldwide 20k USD/year is an insane expense, the fact that big moneybags that could have easily paid might get to come along for the ride is a small acceptable price to pay for making information universally accessible.