zlacker

>>sixtyf+(OP)
Before Sci-Hub, I had to find those among my friends with the right access credentials to the right publishers and ask them to get the articles on my behalf, often in batches to not make too much an annoyance of myself.

Needless to say Sci-Hub has been a massive improvement to my quality of life, insofar as satiating my intellectual curiosity is needed. And I'm not even a researcher.

>>Bayart+IP
I am a researcher, and despite having institutional access to most papers I want, I still rely heavily on Sci-Hub as do my colleagues. It has been such an incredibly valuable resource and I'm constantly surprised by how complete it is -- I very rarely come across a paper I need access to that it doesn't have.

I do wonder sometimes if it almost makes it too easy, in a way that ends up propping up the status quo of closed publishing and takes away the incentive of publishing in open access sources. Early in my career I remember discussions about publishing in closed journals, concerns that papers will be less read because people may not have access to them. In the last few years, I feel like this has gone away because it seems like everyone (among researchers at least) knows about Sci-Hub.

I mean, I still think that on the whole, Sci-Hub is a good thing for the research community and the state of the publishing industry -- it gives people access to the research and ultimately does take some money out of the publishers' pockets. But it does also make a broken system feel less broken, and thus people are less willing to actively push for change.