This has nothing to do with what I said. I just implied sharing the costs for expensive equipment and consumables, what the out-of-academia scientists then do is up to them. I did not imply they are not independent.
But it is certainly close to impossible to coordinate without some kind of sci-funding.
Mostly picking at your last sentence. Even so. Once money starts sloshing around, the middlemen swoop in, the costs explode, what started as collaborative becomes institutional, and all of the institutional pathologies reinstate themselves.
But it is certainly close to impossible to coordinate without some kind of sci-funding.