Well I mean Einstein, Netwon, Maxwell, and Galileo were probably more valuable to advancing our understanding of physics than every one of their contemporaries combined.

The funny part is that Einstein wasn't even in academia until after he was famous. If anything this speaks to me that we want only those people in the field who would do it even if there was no reward for they will be the ones who produce earth shattering breakthroughs.

Well not "earth shattering" by any means, but I did all of my research and published with MIT while entirely outside the university system. Everything I achieved was despite, not because of the university system, which having previously encountered I knew would only obstruct my work. What really helped was the internet, patiently emailing other researchers and kindly being sent papers. Without that generosity and the fact that in 2005 people in my field (DSP) kept personal websites, it would not have been possible. Fortunately in many areas of computing research, you don't need much equipment, or it is cheap or even free to get your hands on. I fee sorry for people who work in physics or fields that need expensive specialist facilities for their work.

This is why I vehemently support SciHub and hope other budding researchers get the same breaks that I did, without having to kill themselves in dead institutions.

Having had one foot back in academia for 10 more years now I am absolutely convinced it is doomed. The death spiral of efficient self-cannibalism is reaching a frenzy. Outside a handful of top tier institutions they are not even fit places for teaching and learning, never mind original research. It is so sad what "ideology" can do to great institutions and nations.

> The funny part is that Einstein wasn't even in academia until after he was famous

No...he was doing his PhD when he published the special relativity and other papers that made him famous.

But wasn't he working at a patent office? I was under the impression that working on a PhD at that time and place would not have been considered "in academia", in that he was not teaching or assisting.

He was but I guess definitions vary and I'd consider working on your PhD makes you definitely be in academia.

I am not sure if this is true. I think he was in a patent office when work was done and published in 1905.

I agree, but it seems like a lot of modern research requires resources that make it difficult for independent people to contribute.

Maybe. But also it seems like there's some exponential benefits too. Who can produce the next earth shattering discovery: a 1000 researches who've only done one study, or one researcher who has done a 1000 studies? All that experience and context matters.

The woman who wrote the article is sought after today not because what she's produced over the past years, but because of what those efforts enable her to do next.