That is not how scihub used to function. Scihub used to have an engine, named Plato, which would fetch papers automatically if not already in their database. For the last year now, this essential service has not been operational. This is what the issue I am raising is about.

> this essential service

Give man a fish and he will praise you for a day. Give man a spinning and he will bitch at you because it is not a fish.

It's clear what you're talking about. Software bitrots over time. Plato might need fixes, might have a huge backlog, lots of stuff can happen.

I still have airgapped windows xp systems with one software package on them to do one job. Left alone Software doesn’t bit rot, it is the never ending stream of updates that cause it to cease working over time.

Think about it. Software like Plato downloads papers from around the web. If the environment around software (i.e the web) changes, software without updates bitrots.