I find the situation quite frustrating since it's difficult to near impossible for a lot of the public to have access to research. Public libraries don't generally have subscriptions to the journals, nor do many community colleges. One has to go to a state university, and that can be a long drive. In my case it's a 2 hr drive each way, then the only parking available is by putting quarters into one of a small number of parking meters, which are usually taken. The university library doesn't allow the public to check out or get cards or have online access.
Yes, I could get an alumni card at my own alma mater, for a substantial fee, and check things out there. But then I'd have to take a plane across the country to have access since like many people I did not stay in the town where I went to school. Also, they also don't have parking. Oh there's free parking on Sunday. When the library is closed, so that doesn't help much.
It's also frustrating because most times that I bring this situation up, people will appear in comments and say I am wrong or lying and claim that public libraries all have full journal access. It's not true. I've asked. My public libraries, in the county I live in, and all adjacent counties, do not have journal access. I've also called all of the colleges and know that the state university is the nearest location where I can get access. Despite this there's usually people that will show up and claim that's all wrong and everyone has access. No, we don't.
Also a lot of the research tucked away was directly or indirectly supported with public funds. In some cases there is a requirement it be openly published, but not always. It seems unreasonable to have to support research and then not have open access to it.
It isn't a perfect solution, but the arXiv[0] has preprints of papers from a vareity of disciplines. A similar website exists for cryptography research, though I can't recall the name right now. Authors in many fields propagate the copyediting from the journal versions back to their preprints and so the preprints contain the same information as the "official" published paper.
Granted, not all fields utilize such a preprint server, but in some fields, the public's access to research results is not as dire as your comment states. There is, of course, still significant room for improvement, even in fields that use preprint servers.
Yes, I could get an alumni card at my own alma mater, for a substantial fee, and check things out there. But then I'd have to take a plane across the country to have access since like many people I did not stay in the town where I went to school. Also, they also don't have parking. Oh there's free parking on Sunday. When the library is closed, so that doesn't help much.
It's also frustrating because most times that I bring this situation up, people will appear in comments and say I am wrong or lying and claim that public libraries all have full journal access. It's not true. I've asked. My public libraries, in the county I live in, and all adjacent counties, do not have journal access. I've also called all of the colleges and know that the state university is the nearest location where I can get access. Despite this there's usually people that will show up and claim that's all wrong and everyone has access. No, we don't.
Also a lot of the research tucked away was directly or indirectly supported with public funds. In some cases there is a requirement it be openly published, but not always. It seems unreasonable to have to support research and then not have open access to it.