Anyone doing academic writing, from students at university to scientists, nurses, doctors, engineers, math teachers, vets, all need to read and reference many, many of these academic texts to do any sort of research.
Now imagine every time you want to cite anything, you can only read the synopsis at best because every source wants you to spend $50.
It's normal to need like 50 references for a research paper by the way (although students can get away with 10-20)
I'm sure locking the culmination of human knowledge behind a paywall and limiting the amount of people that can contribute to that knowledge will end well for the species.
ime old papers missing on sci-hub are on libgen.is/scimag, and the newer papers since sci-hub stopped uploading might be available on annas-archive.org/scidb.
Why did they stop uploading new ones?
to comply with a court order in india, because apparently they think that they can win. the case is ongoing. i'm not up to speed on their actual chances, but they thought it was worth it
Well I hope it goes well for them. I still use it quite a bit for someone who isn't in school anymore.