zlacker

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.

>>gms777+(OP)
I think there is some nuance even for those with institutional access (e.g. field, institution, etc). I am also a researcher (though I hesitate to call myself that), and I read (or skim) through quite a few papers every week, and I very rarely run into a situation where I do not have access through the publisher. It's so uncommon that I very rarely think about (my own) access at all...

I only say this to provide my day-to-day experience, I do think Sci-Hub is a net positive, and I'm certainly in favor of seeing the status quo change.