
Ask HN: Why are a lot of research papers behind paywalls? - mrburton
I always wondered why there were so many research papers placed behind paywalls? It seems to counter productive to research?
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yesenadam
It is. There's a lot of money in it!

That's why there's SciHub, e.g.

[http://libgen.io/scimag/index.php](http://libgen.io/scimag/index.php)

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mrburton
Who makes the money? The scientists who publish the papers? It reminds me a
lot of how software development use to be "back in the day".

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lamchob
100% The publishers. Neither the reviewers, nor the authors get compensation.
The only thing they get is to claim they review/publish in <insert relevant
journal>.

The process is deeply flawed and there is a movement called open access to
fight this.

Edit: The saddest thing is, that a lot of research behind paywalls is publicly
funded

