Authors in scientific journals never get paid for them, except that the journals usually give the authors a bunch of printed copies of the article (on the same type of paper the journals are on). This is not a new thing. When I was a grad student in the late 1980s, it was explained to me that way.
Seems insane that their work can be taken and resold like that without any sort of benefit to the researcher who did all the work. There should be a law against it, honestly.
This is probably for the best. If authors received payment for a publication then their motivations and the conclusions made in those publications would be questioned.
I know its not new. I was just not aware that you could directly request a copy of a paper from the author. Didn't think it was ettiquette and all. But I'm happy to know it now, as I will be taking advantage of it as the interest arises.
Surely without the journals publishing their papers no one would know that the papers exist. I don't see a problem as it is very costly to publish scientific journals due to the low customer base. I presume that the charge is not $35 per paper read as that is too high?
It's totally voluntary. The researchers want their work to be cited. They want to be published. These aren't "for profit" journals. That money just goes to keep things going. Almost no academics actually pay to access those articles, it's just amateur researchers that do.
Some of the more enlightened academics will put PDFs of their articles on their faculty web pages, I guess depending on the contract with the publication.
Honestly, I doubt that many people are paying the per paper charges. Most people who access those journals are at academic institutions, and their libraries are paying the site fee, not per paper fees.
The vast majority of scientific papers are available to anyone at no cost: https://citationsy.com/blog/download-research-papers-scientific-articles-free-scihub/ Anyone interested can do a search and find almost everything.
What I do when I find a paper behind a paywall is google for the title and add pdf in the search. Frequently I'm able to find a copy of the publication for free. And has already been mentioned many post their publications on their individual faculty webpage. I have had researchers email me copies upon request as well though that's the exception rather than the rule for me because I don't like bothering people.
For any layperson without access to faculty database or networks: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/scie...tions/finding-and-accessing-scientific-papers