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260 points the-mitr | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.209s | source
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megaloblasto ◴[] No.45051186[source]
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.

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kleiba ◴[] No.45051583[source]
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).

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calf ◴[] No.45052011[source]
Your unpopular opinion is fallacious, markets can fail and as a result grey/black markets arise. This sci-hub issue is plausible evidence of that. Moreover there are systems where markets could be entirely inappropriate. But there's no law of nature or god that tells us how to decide as a society. Indeed it is your very mention of consumerism that belies this presupposition.
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1. kleiba ◴[] No.45053477[source]
Why shouldn't we abolish any digital markets then, because in theory, you could have a service similar to sci-hub for books, movies, music... And these exist and existed (and are regularly shut down by the authorities).