> It's really hard to access academic journal articles online.
We obviously need something better than the status quo here, but the status quo isn't as bad as it seems if you know how it works.
Quick hints: email the article author. They'll probably more than happy to send you an article and a quick summary worded for a lay audience (not to mention talking your ear off about their more recent work...) They're not worried about you not paying the publishers, they want to spread their work around.
Another trick is knowing people in academia. Maybe you have a friend who's doing graduate work, or lecturing. You could ask your old lecturers if you went to university and if the paper you're after is in their field. There are also communities like /r/scholar on Reddit, though I imagine some people are against that sort of thing.
Actually the use case you described seems very ripe for disruption if you ask me. Because it's hacking your way to the solution, whereas we could need a better solution.
We obviously need something better than the status quo here, but the status quo isn't as bad as it seems if you know how it works.
Quick hints: email the article author. They'll probably more than happy to send you an article and a quick summary worded for a lay audience (not to mention talking your ear off about their more recent work...) They're not worried about you not paying the publishers, they want to spread their work around.
Another trick is knowing people in academia. Maybe you have a friend who's doing graduate work, or lecturing. You could ask your old lecturers if you went to university and if the paper you're after is in their field. There are also communities like /r/scholar on Reddit, though I imagine some people are against that sort of thing.