What is Open Access?

Quite simply, Open Access is a movement that arose in the academic community in response to huge paywalls imposed by publishers. Essentially, publishers are preventing people from accessing research unless they’re able to pay incredibly steep fees.
While researchers at a well-funded university are generally not affected by these costs, that leaves the rest of the world without access to this research. If a researcher is at a university that doesn’t pay for a certain publisher, or if a researcher is unaffiliated with an institution that can cover these costs, they are unable to read these papers- arguably to the detriment of scientific advancement.
Further, consider this: your tax dollars are being spent by the government on scientific research. You are not allowed to read the results of this research unless you pay- again- for the privileges of reading it. Oftentimes, you’d have to pay per paper.