But he probably does it because it's just easier than getting a subscription to a university library. Proving my point exactly - how hard is it really to get access to academic papers? Most authors can't even find people that want to read their stuff. This whole 'I can't access research' is really 'there is no website where the 0.1% of people who don't have main stream and side stream access to journals can download them from'. Hardly the big threat to society it is sometimes made out to be.
Let me state again that I too would sometimes prefer one huge easily accessible database with all articles ever published, along with cites and H-factors and objective impact factor rankings and a bookmarking/personal library feature and maybe a pony too. Then again, the magnitude of that problem is miniscule compared to other problems I have I'd much rather see solved, or spend my time on. And my experience says most of the people in my work field feel the same.
I generally agree. At the same time, it's good to have tools for such edge cases - there are some papers in niche journals etc. which play a part in science but may not be easily attainable (again, because e.g. public libraries do not pay for subscriptions for those journals and whatnot.) But I agree with the gist of what you're saying (trying to come up with a universal user friendly system might be an overkill); but it is good to have these frustrations and debate in the open, and again, I really like that there is such a place as /r/scholar.
Let me state again that I too would sometimes prefer one huge easily accessible database with all articles ever published, along with cites and H-factors and objective impact factor rankings and a bookmarking/personal library feature and maybe a pony too. Then again, the magnitude of that problem is miniscule compared to other problems I have I'd much rather see solved, or spend my time on. And my experience says most of the people in my work field feel the same.