Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

Imagine this platform being used not only by the obvious end-users (researchers, students, etc.) but also by a network of *other tools* attempting to optimize research accessibility/validation/analysis for every use casehttps://twitter.com/StephenPiment/status/1104464614794747904 …

This is well within the bounds of our technical ability, and there's surely demand for it — but I don't see any way for this to happen while research orgs are making deals that make public research the defensible intellectual property of private companies

On this point, it's not the research that's the intellectual property of Elsevier, it's the published article in which the research is described. OA business at Elsevier grew 25% last year, so the world we both want is coming.

Guess who is responsible for the growing influx of VC into the formerly sleepy sector? It's the commercial publishers, as they transition to information & analytics businesses, making acquisitions of startups & giving VCs a reason to invest.

I’m sure many of them would love to see the free dissemination of all extant public research — the start-up boom that would follow would probably define the decade

No published research is inaccessible today, even the subscription stuff. Libraries are allowed to give free access to anyone who walks in, researchers can give their papers to anyone who asks, then there's all the pirate stuff. Developing countries are given free access.

It’s a search problem. The difference between library-card access to a handful of PDFs at a time & an open, universal API for public research is *massive.* The opportunity that’s currently being squandered is unreal.