Sci-Net

Scope and Purpose of Sci‑Net

• Seen as a marketplace for “priority requests” of papers missing from Sci‑Hub, with tokens used to reward uploaders.
• Several commenters stress this does not (or should not) replace automatic scraping or free access; it just handles gaps in the database.
• Some note Sci‑Hub’s database has not been updated for years, and Sci‑Net appears partly as a response to growing manual requests.

Are Incentives Necessary or Desirable?

• One side: academics and ex‑academics say people are already eager to share papers; legal barriers, not lack of motivation, are the main issue.
• Others argue manual fulfillment is tedious and endless; without incentives it’s a poor use of time, so some reward mechanism is justified.
• There is concern that adding money may attract abuse (spam uploads, low‑quality/AI‑generated content) and distort original community‑driven goals.

Legal, Safety, and Anonymity Risks

• Strong worry that paying and being paid to violate copyright is qualitatively different from informal sharing:
  • Easier to frame as a “paid criminal enterprise.”
  • Transactions on Solana are traceable, potentially linkable to real identities and even tax‑reportable.
• Claims about watermark removal and identity protection are viewed skeptically; many expect technical failure and serious consequences for students/researchers.

Choice of Crypto and Tokenomics

• Broad criticism of launching a new meme token rather than using established privacy coins (especially Monero).
• Concerns:
  • Lack of anonymity on Solana.
  • Typical pattern of pre‑mines and large concentrated holdings enabling de facto fundraising/rug‑pulls, even if no per‑transaction “cut” is taken.
• Some defend a dedicated token as a practical fundraising and coordination tool in a hostile legal/financial environment.

Usability and User Experience

• The crypto on‑ramp (wallets, QR codes, Solana specifics) is seen as confusing and off‑putting, undermining Sci‑Hub’s key advantage: simplicity.
• Several say they encountered the new system when trying to retrieve a paper and found it “hot confusion,” not “interesting.”

Alternatives, Redundancy, and Blocking

• Many now prefer Anna’s Archive (which partly relies on historical Sci‑Hub dumps) and various Nexus/Telegram bots.
• Others emphasize the importance of redundancy: if one archive disappears or is blocked (as already happens at ISP level in some countries), others remain accessible.

Geopolitics and Trust

• Debate over whether a token system effectively channels funds, directly or via state pressure, into Russia’s war economy.
• Some distrust the founder’s politics or personal views; others argue her past work has been overwhelmingly beneficial and that personal ideology is secondary to access.