The researchers deserve some of the blame as well.  In physics, at least, and certainly in some other fields, there is a strong tradition of posting preprints to the arXiv or other similar free archives.  The journals, including all the top journals, accommodate this---they have no choice.<p>You mention chemistry.  I don&#x27;t know anything about chemistry journals, but given the precedent set by other fields, I feel that chemists don&#x27;t have a good excuse for locking their research up behind paywalls.