[mechanical_fish]

It's not at all clear to me that the end effect is as different as the proponents claim.

Were you born in that ivory tower, or did you just move there before you could read?

Go get a job outside of research for a while (software companies are hiring!) and then take another look at this question. Those of us on the outside can tell you the difference between PLoS and, say, Nature. It's about $200 per year per journal, or $30 per article in small quantities. More importantly, it's the difference between being able to quickly skim an article in thirty seconds with one click and paying to skim each and every one of the hundreds of articles that are required to really get a firm grasp on a field. It's the difference between being able to simply link your most interested blog readers to the original research (complete with original data and figures) and having to tediously paraphrase everything you want to convey, a paraphrasing process that often goes awry.

[gnosis]

Your response would have been much stronger without the condescending "ivory tower" and "get a job" jabs.

[mechanical_fish]

I was a graduate student for seven years and a postdoc for three. I still count many academics among my friends. I sometimes entertain the thought of once again working for a university. So I'm afraid I'm not very shy about potentially insulting my own social class. ;)

And I'm sorry the subject makes me angry. But it makes me angry! For example, the fact that most of my own published work is trapped behind expensive paywalls makes me very unhappy.

And I use the phrase ivory tower not as a mere gratuitous insult, but because it's the metaphor that seems to fit. Every time this subject comes up, a few people pop up to say that they just can't see the problem: Everyone who goes to school or works in science has one-click access to the whole literature, right? And if I happen to not be a college student or a scientist, can't I just physically travel to the nearest well-funded, publicly accessible university library? Doesn't anyone who matters have such a library at hand, and the time to visit it?

There was a time when printed journals in university libraries were the best we could do. But now it is 2011, and many people no longer read physical books or magazines. In less than a decade the idea of having to leave the house to retrieve written material will be as quaint as having to talk to a human telephone operator to place a long-distance call. In this era, if the attitude I described above isn't "ivory-tower", what is? What should I be reserving the ivory-tower metaphor for?