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Haha yeah. I’m also a researcher at a big uni and I do have legit access to every relevant journal for me. If I need a new paper I do a google scholar search first, and if it doesn’t say “pdf” but instead wants me to jump through hoops to log in and download then I just hit my bookmarklet to get it from scihub.

Same here. I even use SciHub to get my own papers. It's way easier to get them through SciHub then browsing through old file/folders.

Same here, I usually get it from Sci-Hub instead of the legit link, because it's faster and easier.

my work is the same, I have to spend 2-3 minutes just getting to the portal to download

very often ~piracy-like websites aim at efficiency .. maybe the lack of inertia