/r/scholar on Reddit is very useful for this. A polite request almost always brings a .pdf within a few hours, or a day or so at the most.

However, I find this rather harsh aversion to paying a few bucks for peer-reviewed, scientific content curious.

I don't have a harsh aversion to paying for content, unless I've already paid for it with my taxes, which is often the case with scientific papers.

I do have a harsh aversion to rent-seeking middlemen who do nothing but put up a website and collect $15 fees to let me download other peoples' work.