I believe this. There is a pervasive tendency to imagine that the grass is always greener on the other side: “sure, no one in $MY_AREA spends a lot of time going through paywalls, even when they ostensibly have access, because it’s such a hassle, and rely heavily on social media or informal writings or Wikipedia, and for us it’s definitely true that ‘if it’s not in Google it doesn’t exist’, but over there, among the grownups in the room, there they do it right, the way we wish we could, there they are of course doing all their homework and diligently reading every paper rather than just skimming or skipping!” And then sometimes you get over to that other room, and realize that it’s more or less like where you just came from. Yeah, they too use Sci-Hub and Twitter and Google Docs. Yeah, the billionaires are using the same smartphones and SaaS apps you are too, and may be reading the same blogs too. What you see is what you get.
I believe this. There is a pervasive tendency to imagine that the grass is always greener on the other side: “sure, no one in $MY_AREA spends a lot of time going through paywalls, even when they ostensibly have access, because it’s such a hassle, and rely heavily on social media or informal writings or Wikipedia, and for us it’s definitely true that ‘if it’s not in Google it doesn’t exist’, but over there, among the grownups in the room, there they do it right, the way we wish we could, there they are of course doing all their homework and diligently reading every paper rather than just skimming or skipping!” And then sometimes you get over to that other room, and realize that it’s more or less like where you just came from. Yeah, they too use Sci-Hub and Twitter and Google Docs. Yeah, the billionaires are using the same smartphones and SaaS apps you are too, and may be reading the same blogs too. What you see is what you get.