> they're ultimately limited to carving a niche for themselves with little effect on the wider system itself.
You have already noticed some of the changes, but you're not thinking long term enough.
Look at what's happening in universities, not for existing researchers, as they will eventually be replaced.
I must admit I'm a bit disconnected as I left a couple of years before COVID, but already back then, students do their lit review using google. If something is not easily accessible, unless it's a must-known paper, they won't bother with even scihub (and I'm talking about scihub because even if the university provides access to most journals, most people don't bother with that as it requires being on campus or using a weird VPN)
In classes, there're a lot exercises based on replication: try to get the same results as this or that to learn about this method. For now, it's mostly done with books, but a new trend is using published datasets to level up.
I'm not saying you aren't partially right, but things are changing fast!
You have already noticed some of the changes, but you're not thinking long term enough.
Look at what's happening in universities, not for existing researchers, as they will eventually be replaced.
I must admit I'm a bit disconnected as I left a couple of years before COVID, but already back then, students do their lit review using google. If something is not easily accessible, unless it's a must-known paper, they won't bother with even scihub (and I'm talking about scihub because even if the university provides access to most journals, most people don't bother with that as it requires being on campus or using a weird VPN)
In classes, there're a lot exercises based on replication: try to get the same results as this or that to learn about this method. For now, it's mostly done with books, but a new trend is using published datasets to level up.
I'm not saying you aren't partially right, but things are changing fast!