Oh I didn't forget Rex.

Sci-Hub supports the idea of Open Access but they're not the same. Sci-Hub was funded some 20 years later, and even that late to the party it gets millions of requests a day and dozens of millions of downloads every month from all over the world.

That's one utilitarian argument I wouldn't call a "small fry."

What you forget is that academic papers are non-fungible. You can't replace one with other because they are about individual discoveries. So having most of them is not enough (you could make the counterargument that most of the impactful research is Open Access, but who are we to tell what's impactful and what's not?)

So no, I don't think your little DIY "I Looked at Twenty Papers And They Were Open Access Therefore No Need For Sci-Hub" experiment proves that there is no demand for the kind of bypass it provides.

Another thing you forget is the purpose of this article. Yes I could've talked in technical detail about the Open Access movement, in greater detail about Robert Maxwell's influence on the business model and a lot of other stuff I omit so I could write a gripping, suspensful story focused on Alexandra. But that would be about as boring as a chess radio broadcast for the mainstream Medium audience.

If this story had the reach it did it was because of what I chose to focus it on. Otherwise you would not even be aware of it. And that's another utilitarian argument I guess.

Thanks for reading Rex 🖤