Anyone doing academic writing, from students at university to scientists, nurses, doctors, engineers, math teachers, vets, all need to read and reference many, many of these academic texts to do any sort of research.
Now imagine every time you want to cite anything, you can only read the synopsis at best because every source wants you to spend $50.
It’s normal to need like 50 references for a research paper by the way (although students can get away with 10-20)
I’m sure locking the culmination of human knowledge behind a paywall and limiting the amount of people that can contribute to that knowledge will end well for the species.
“I like the idea of communism, and the idea that knowledge should be common and not intellectual property is very relevant. That is especially true for information. Research articles are used for communication in science. But the word ‘communication’ implies common ownership by itself.” Said by my superheroine Alexandra Elbakyan.