I’ve noticed this cycle for the past 30 years on the internet where a useful thing starts out really simply (host a BBS, or host a billion pdfs forever). It’s not trivial, but it seems like it should be pretty low resource.
Then people get hired and are into it and want to get paid (as people do). And costs go up. And slowly more people get added. And instead of looking for cheap ways to operate, they want to fund those people and give them 5% raises every year.
So they look for funders to cover “the bare minimum.”
So rather than figuring out how to operate efficiently, they look for benefactors.
I love arxiv and use it all the time. But why do they have employees? And what are their costs? And why not get it to the point of operating with volunteers.
I suppose someone can do that and set it up. Until then, I’ll just donate or applaud benefactors. And use scihub too I suppose. How much does that cost to run?
