Sci-Net

"On Sci-Net, you're using tokens directly to reward uploaders. Payments go to fellow researchers, not to the platform."

I understood that payments go to fellow uploaders, which could be random university students that just do this to "earn" tokens. So the money is still not flowing to researchers. Have I misunderstood?

I think you right. But researchers can upload their own papers. Seem to require a paying requester and the researcher has to notice the request.

the point is not to pay researchers (lol), but to encourage uploaders with karma points, while paying for sci-hub infrastructure...

While I agree this is phrased in somewhat misleading way, I think by "fellow researchers" they ment "researchers like you, user, who believe and participate in liberation of science", not "the researchers, who authored the paper you're trying to pirate".

They make it very clear they aren't taking a cut. The quote in the linked page is "payments go to fellow researchers, not to the platform."

They don't need to take a cut of the transaction because they'll effectively own a significant part of the token supply. They make their "cut" whenever someone buys their tokens.

Well, I'm responding to someone who said one of the purposes of the coin was to make money to pay for infrastructure, which the article specifically says is not true.

It sounds like you're making a separate accusation, which I have no opinion about. There's nothing in that statement about them owning a significant part of the token supply, though it may be true for all I know. Do you have any evidence for it, or is it just your expectation of what will happen?