Read This Academic Journal Article, but Prepare to Pay - James Fallows - National - The Atlantic

"You might argue that academic publishing affects only academics, but it does not. Anyone with an interest in or question about health or art history or building a house or running a business -- the list is endless -- might want to learn the newest knowledge -- something they might find in an academic article. Unless you already had a subscription (might run into the tens of thousands of dollars) to that specialty journal or had special access through a college or university, you might well have to pay anywhere from $20 to $50 for limited access to that one article. If you needed to look over several articles and were not sure which one would be of interest, the meter would tick up quite a toll and very quickly...."