That's not playing devil's advocate, that is playing clueless. It's the institutions paying for paper access, and not on a "per paper" basis; no ones incentives are being aligned, no one is actually paying $50 to read a paper.
If (as I claimed) it's just a token cost, I don't think it matters much who is paying it. In fact it is almost better if they get to claim universities find it worth an expensive subscription, it's not like they're trying to cover costs they're putting up a barrier to show it is worth the trouble.
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That's not playing devil's advocate, that is playing clueless. It's the institutions paying for paper access, and not on a "per paper" basis; no ones incentives are being aligned, no one is actually paying $50 to read a paper.
If (as I claimed) it's just a token cost, I don't think it matters much who is paying it. In fact it is almost better if they get to claim universities find it worth an expensive subscription, it's not like they're trying to cover costs they're putting up a barrier to show it is worth the trouble.