I still have scientific journal access through my alma mater, but for those who don’t it can be really frustrating — especially since research is often funded to some extent with taxpayer money!
That said, in many fields it’s common to post research papers to e.g. arXiv before submitting to a journal. So if you see a research paper that’s behind a paywall, you can often find a nearly identical version on arXiv or similar. Note that this is not piracy, and the version you get on arXiv will be formatted differently, may not have the latest edits, etc., but the gist should be there. Also note that there’s nothing stopping crackpots from posting there.