It’s pretty clear at this point that open access is winning. Of course, the percentage of papers available as OA has been climbing steadily for years. But now on top of this, bold new mandates like Plan S are poised to fast-track the transition to universal open access.

But–and this may seem weird coming from the makers of Unpaywall–are we going too far, too fast? Sure, OA will accelerate discovery, help democratize knowledge, and whatnot. It’s obvious what we have to gain.

Maybe what’s less obvious is what we’re going to lose. We’re going to lose the paywall. And with it, maybe we’re going to lose a little something…of ourselves.

Think about it: some of humankind’s greatest achievements have been walls. You’ve got the Great Wall of China (useful for being seen from space!), the Berlin Wall (useful for being a tourist attraction!), and American levees (useful for driving your Chevy to, when they don’t break!)

Now, are the paywalls around research articles really great cultural achievements? With all due respect: what a fantastically stupid question. Of course they are! Or not! Who knows! It doesn’t matter. What matters is that losing the paywall means change, and that means it’s scary and probably bad.

Why, just the other day we went to read an scholarly article, and we wanted to pay someone money, and THERE WAS NOWHERE TO DO IT. Open Access took that away from us. We were not consulted. This is “progress?”

You used to know where you stood. Specifically, you stood on the other side of a towering paywall that kept you from accessing the research literature. But now: who knows? Who knows?

Well, good news friend: with our new browser extension, you know. That’s right, we are gonna make the paywall great again, with a new browser extension that magically erects a paywall to keep you from reading Open Access articles!

The extension is called Paywall (natch), and it’s elegantly simple: the next time you stumble upon one of those yucky open access articles, Paywall automatically hides it from you, and requires you pay $35 to read. That’s right, we’re gonna rebuild the paywall, and we’re gonna make you pay for it!

With Paywall, you’ll enjoy your reading so much more…after all, you paid $35 for that article so you better like it. And let’s be honest, you were probably gonna blow that money on something useless anyway. This way, at least you know you’re helping make the world a better place, particularly the part of the world that is our Cayman Islands bank account.

Paywalls are part of our heritage as researchers. They feel right. They are time-tested. They are, starting now, personally lucrative for the writers of this blog post. I mean, what more reasons do we need? BUILD. THE. WALL. Install Paywall. Now. Do it. Do it now.

Thanks so much for your continued support. Remember, we can’t stop the march of progress–but together, scratching and clawing and biting as one, maybe we can maybe slow it down a little. At least long enough to make a few extra bucks.

⇨ Click here to install Paywall!

~~~~~~~~~