system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How does the scientific community reconcile its central ideas among them rigorous testing, transparency, and peer-review with the longstanding precedent of studies being available only to those with a subscription to the journal in which it was published?

This is a question that has rattled around my brain for many years but I'm not sure if my premise is wrong from the start - I know little of the academic process and guidelines surrounding publication aside from what I've learned as a layman brushing up on various journals, subs, citations and rating systems.

My main premise is that the whole core philosophy of Science revolves around the idea of peer-review and being able to be refuted by other scientists and even regular folk. So how do they get off with giving exclusivity to certain obscure quarterlies and what-have-you? Or is this untrue - Is there some database of all the world's scientific knowledge? If my assumption of exclusivity and "protection" is correct does it stem from intellectual property and fiscal concerns?

Why is there no online database of the things published in Nature et al in their entirety? Does it simply exist outside my knowledge? Because I've seen sites that seem to harbor the basic info such as the abstract but hold off the nitty gritty. That to me defeats the entire purpose.

Thanks for any help you guys can offer :)
gpt
You have to pay to access many articles online because publication isn't free. The scientific community also won't pay for your lab equipment to replicate results, but that doesn't invalidate the core philosophy of repeatability. If you can get yourself physically to an academic library, you'll find that the vast majority of the scientific literature is provided free as a courtesy even for non-affiliated patrons. 

Even better, it's becoming more common for academics to upload their own papers online (e.g., arXiv), for research groups to pay to publish in open-source journals so that you can access their work for free online (e.g., PLoS), and for the government to insist that government-funded research be free to access online (e.g., PubMed).