The hardest part is those at the top have the most advantages. For example, ivy league institutes now pay for substantial editing before it makes it to the peer review stage. This increases the quality of the work, but other scholars at institutes without the same level of funding are now competing against a higher bar, reducing their total output. (If you can save 200 hours of work per paper, you can put another paper out.)
Money always imbalances the equation. This is yet another example. Unless institutions are willing to change the publication system, it will not get better, and it isn't in the interests in the institutions at the top to allow more competition.
Reducing output in exchange for quality doesn't sound like a particularly bad tradeoff, especially it's happening fairly naturally and as a response to a perceived lack of quality.
I guess that's an opportunity for those countries to focus on research quality instead of publication volume and sidetrack the entire issue.
But, well, they are not doing this. That's too bad.
It's not quality versus quantity - it's paying for expert assistance. This isn't cheating, mind you - it's something every one of us will do, given the option. However, wealthy institutions can pay for it, and other institutions cannot - that leaves the academic to either pay out of their own pocket (say, if they have a partner who is in our industry and can afford to), or go without.
It checks for working mirrors. I included an iphone shortcut I made that also checks mirrors. Run the shortcut through the share sheet while on a page of an article you need. Feel free to ask for help if that's unclear.
What makes the whole situation bearable, in my opinion, is sci-hub. Nature or whoever can charge whatever prices they wish, it makes no difference to my point of access. Even during times when I have legitimate access, it’s still often simpler to just find a paper on sci-hub.
Thank goodness for pirates.
5-10 minutes jumping through hoops versus 30 seconds getting it on sci-hub. Easy choice.
Is there a way to stop this? Some bright minds have been able to support themselves through fan donations or start businesses. Too bad that doesn’t scale.
It is a matter of domains when it comes to scaling in research. There is far less of a need for a budget with software than say particle physics.
