[mathetic]

That's not always an option. Your career very much depends on consistently publishing in "A" venues (conference/journal). So it depends on your subcommunity's opinion on open access. For example, programming language people as a community are super keen on it, so most top venues are becoming open access. If that's not the case for your field, it's basically academic suicide unless you already have an amazing reputation.

[traverseda]

You see, I read that clause in particular as "The difference between research and tinkering is whether you belong to an organisation that's willing to spend 30k+ a year on journal access".

And fuck that. If that's the attitude that academia is going to take, clearly we need to kill it off, tinker for a while, and start fresh.

Maybe we can refresh some standards for academic writing while we're at it.

[52-6F-62]

I've heard some prominent academics speak to the same end, or farther, in the rare access I've had. (Yet with displaying no less passion for their chosen subjects. Who would have guessed!)

[neuromantik8086]

Freeman Dyson is actually quite vocal about his opposition to the current structure of academia, so I'm not surprised that you'd be able to find other academics who were equally self-critical.

[52-6F-62]

I probably shouldn't be so surprised— but the number of esteemed academics I've had the chance to encounter I can count on one hand. Though many seem to share that same opinion.

The number of pretentious title-holders (even at the lowest minimum levels) I've met seems unending. I could get into that one... but I won't.

Instead you've just reminded me of yet more subjects to stack on my reading list.

[togelius]

This is all true. However, the large publishers (IEEE, ACM, Springer) these days all allow you to self-archive on your own webpage and typically also on ArXiv. So you can (and should) make your papers freely available. I have done that since the start of my career. It's just a matter of looking.