[megaloblasto]

$20,000 annually to keep up on the latest science makes it prohibitively expensive for most of the world to do meaningful science. If only the rich can do science then we miss out on crucial scientific advancements. Less scientific advancements means less people get life saving medicines, less environmental disasters are uncovered and dealt with.

Plus, I was just using your own logic of replacing "paper" with anything else that I might consume in my everyday life.

[kleiba]

I worked in research for decades - no idea where you get that $20,000 number from. Also, I cannot follow this argument of "only the rich can do science", this seems to bear any relation to reality.

[megaloblasto]

The math for the $20,000 is in my first post. $60 a paper times 365 days a year is $21,900 and I rounded down.

I don't have an example of a $60 paper (I don't keep a list) but below is a $42 paper and a $35 paper that I came across very recently.

https://library.seg.org/doi/epub/10.1190/geo2023-0525.1

https://www.dl.begellhouse.com/journals/52034eb04b657aea,442...

This is prohibitively expensive for the majority of the world.

Remember that the global average annual salary is around $18,000 (https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17512040).

These people cannot access science that is behind a paywall. The fact that they cannot is a failure. Whether its a moral failure, or an economic or a societal one, I'm not sure, but I do believe that providing free access to scientific advancements it the right thing to do.