Which academic access restrictions are you talking about? I know people who have started independent "institutes" but the only reason you need to do so is to receive federal funding. It's true that if you brand yourself as an "independent researcher", people might be inclined to think you are a crackpot, but publishing real papers should take care of that.

I'm not sure blogs are a relevant source for scientific studies though. Not necessarily because I think peer review is the greatest system, but having your paper published in an actual journal (open journals are fine) at least means you managed to convince a few other people that it's worth looking at the paper.