No, I don’t mean in rich country.

First, I believe most papers already list coresspoding author’ email, which one can send a request to for a reprint. And most people would be happy to send one, and because citation is one of the important metric for how successful and influential one’s research is. Most people is happy to send one.

Second, PI is different from student for this. As a PI one basically already has some connections with people in the field. It’s likely you already know some of the authors, or your friends in the field could help you get a copy.

I don’t mean PIs would find scihub not useful, but PIs likely have other resources to help get a paper.