My paper was published in MDPI open access and then a whole heap of publishing companies came along, stole it, and now charge money for it. And they're the ones you get first if you search for it in Google Scholar.

I'm so mad. I was proud of that and wanted people to see it, but now 90% of people who come across it will incorrectly think its behind a paywall and not bother.

That's a great point, I've reached out to researchers a few times to ask about their research and they have all freely just shared the work with me.

And since a grad school thesis isn't published, there's definitely no restrictions on the author sharing it. Maybe it'll get a few citations in the future. Not many, of course, but anything more than zero is nice.