It seems that a lot of computer scientists and programmers assume that the ACM (Association of Computing Machinery) is a mere publisher of computer science papers. They forget that the ACM hands out the Turing Award which has been awarded to several prominent computer scientists such as Alan J Perlis, Marvin Minsky, Edsger W Dijkstra, Donald E Knuth, and Barbara Liskov. When I subscribed as a professional, I gained access to the digital library which is rich with computer science papers which are sometimes practical, sometimes theoretical. The papers are found in the numerous transactions and journals that the ACM publishes, and the ACM hosts many conferences and sponsors some amazing events such as the ICPC (International Collegiate Programming Contest) and they even sponsored the Deep Blue vs Kasparov chess game.
The price for a year's subscription was only $200 USD and for students the price is lower than that. Students should have access to the ACM Digital Library through their university so their subscription price is effectively $0 per year. It's incredible to think that so many papers are ignored and don't become popular because of a $200 paywall. $200 is seriously not much.