Records access, storage and collection are not free. The network connections are also expensive. PACER has redundant commercial network connections to over 2000 courthouse locations. Although costs have come down, this system aggregates data from 94 separate districts, including Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaii and the Northern Mariana Islands. It is triple redundant, so that the systems can survive any natural disaster. After Hurricane Sandy, records were still available and the courts were open for electronic filing even though the buildings were flooded and off the grid. These systems are far more expensive than a simple FTP server; they serve terabytes of data. The Federal Courts are open 24/7 for electronic filing, one of the more accessible government agencies in the world.

PACER charges a fee to maintain the systems that support public access and improve IT services in the Federal Courts. It is very similar to using fishing license fees to support fisheries or drivers license fees to maintain the DMV. User fees are an important way to maintain systems separate from a reliance on the political system. PACER fees are the only fees coming into the Federal Courts that are not appropriated by Congress. Most of the fees are collected from the law firms that practice in Federal Court.

One could argue that the funds to run PACER should in fact rely on the political system and come from congress. If you want to change this, contact the members of the House judiciary committee (http://judiciary.house.gov/) and lobby them. However, the federal courts have not actually received a budget since September and are under a lot of stress to keep running despite this.

One could argue that PACER should be charging 5 to 7 cents per page rather than 10 and should not be generating money for general court IT projects. But be aware that these projects are not frivolous. They save significant amounts of time for the litigants. Given the high cost of legal services, this helps reduce financial the burden on both prosecution and defense.

With a cost of 10 cents per page up to a maximum of 3 dollars per document, the implicit comparison to a journal subscription which costs hundreds of dollars is specious. Also, this fee is waived if an individual's costs are less than $15. The OP acknowledges, "That means that any individual using PACER can download 150 pages every quarter for free." So the system is already free for anyone who is making casual use of it. There are also academic and financial-hardship waivers available. I argue, as many on HN have done about free-of-charge web services run by companies, that those who rely on a system in order to do business should pay for its upkeep in order to make sure the system stays around.

Where does RECAP's funding come from? What standards of availability does it guarantee? If it succeeds in serving most documents but without an availability or document authenticity guarantee, what has been accomplished but a degradation of service? If this diverts most funding away from PACER and makes it harder to maintain reliably, will that actually increase public access to court records? Will that actually contribute to a more just world?

As rayiner points out, state courts do not make their documents available nearly as freely as the federal court does. While that is separate from the argument over whether it is right to maintain PACER the way the court does, it does indicate that effort spent to increase access toward court records would be better allocated toward state courts.

Also, one could argue that PACER's UI could be better. This is true. Anyone want to put together a proposal?