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Comment by S_Daedalus | Hacker News Reader

Hopefully there's a better outcome than just lowering prices per unit though.

While it may be far from ideal, I know a lot of academics who would be willing to pay a dollar for access to an article their library doesn't have access to instead of going to Sci-Hub, but when the only option now is to pay $40 per article or obtain it through more questionable means (whether through SciHub or Reddit/Twitter or friends at another university), people don't really have a choice.

Many researchers explained how significant was sci hub in their work. Pretty sure it avoided wasting brain time already. Spending money on better areas too.

I'm thinking more of long-term effects on science publishing, that survive after Sci-Hub is potentially taken apart or subverted as Napster was. Napster wasn't that great, but it taught a lot of people directly, just how much better they could be doing in terms of digital distribution. Hopefully sci-hub will have a similar lasting impact, as a result of the reduction in waste you're talking about.

Even if it dies, people won't accept it; that's what I hope.

Lowering prices? Did music prices actually get lower? I recall always being able to buy a cd for 10-20 bucks. Prices are only marginally cheaper and only for digital.

You're right, but now you don't have to buy any more than a buck's worth of it if you don't feel like it, which is an improvement. Still, a dubious one I think.

In any case, scientific writing needs to be out in the open for everyone, including those with a buck to spare, to have access to. Never mind all of the other ridiculous aspects of a publisher making mint on this.

Inflation adjusted music has gotten significantly cheaper. ~17$ in 1990 ~32$ in 2016. Wage stagnation has kind of muddled the issue somewhat though.

Took me awhile to understand what you mean. I calculated inflation in Canada to be $27 today from $17 in 1990 (which was about what I paid then). Of course I pay $10-13 per album now.

With Spotify et al., prices for access to music settled on a low monthly rate. You get all the music for the price of half a CD a month.

Most music. There are still record companies which think the exclusive deals are something good.

I'm finding I could have bought 90 percent of the music I've listened to on Spotify 3x over had I just bought the CDs and not used spotify. (not giving up spotify, it's just too nice for finding good music)

Buying a song for $0.99-$1.49 is definitely cheaper, as I'd often buy a CD for $15 to get 3 songs I wanted. There were occasions with some hidden gems, but 95%+ of all my album purchases are categorized as $3-7 dollars per song I wanted. (even when singles were still a thing)

No proof physical music prices went up ? shrinking market => less economy of scale => higher price (my eco-noob POV)

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