Via Paul Graham he have this interesting factoid:
… articles downloaded from Sci-hub were cited 1.72 times more than papers not downloaded from Sci-hub and that the number of downloads from Sci-hub was a robust predictor of future citations https://t.co/LiX0Gs555b pic.twitter.com/Z31QehdRvG
— Sci Hub (@Sci_Hub) June 30, 2020
As some of the commenters to the original tweet point out, it may not mean what you think it does. After all, it may be that the causality runs the other way and that the papers are being downloaded from Sci Hub because they get cited a lot.
Still, this has to be terrifying for the publishers who rent seek with paywalls. It indicates that Sci Hub is an integral part of the research ecosystem and is far more than an inconsequential pest for the publishers. As the comments make clear, Sci Hub is the primary means that many—more than I thought—researchers use to read papers. That trend can only strengthen as more universities follow the lead of UC and MIT by abandoning their subscriptions with the publishers.
I keep thinking that if I say it enough it will come true but I just don’t see how the publishers can survive unless they change their business model. Otherwise university libraries will refuse to subscribe and faculty will stop offering their free labor and will prefer not to publish in journals that they view as the worst offenders. You can already see this with Elsevier, the publisher everyone loves to hate. But Elsevier publishes some of the top journals and researches are loath to pass up an opportunity to publish in them so until university departments change their tenure and promotion policies, library budgets will be the primary means of exerting pressure on Elsevier and the other publishers.