…is awesome. I’m poor, and this is an easy way to get information I might need for my research. It helps people in poor and developing countries do research and stay current on trends in their fields, especially those in the medical field in, say, Zimbabwe.
Digitial everything is here to stay. I know there is the argument that this violates the free market. But really, I don;t think it does. I think this can be part of an unregulated market. No one forces researchers to give money to make their work open access. And people are ingenious, so I’m sure they will find a way to make open access journals and other things profitable. i mean, there is a huge potential demand for them all over the world. How many thousands of universities and high schools that want their students to get into college exist? Government agencies, museums, archives, historical sicieties, libraries? Thousands upon thousands more. There is a huge market to license journals to. And if they do it for free, they can certainly wait a period of 3 or 5 years before adding journal issues to open access archives, thus making those who really need to read it pay for it, and then letting it slip into the open access after the time expires. Advertising can be used as well.
I like open access because it allows a poor person like me to have more resources at my disposal for research, which is hard enough as it is.
