Academic publishing is a scam

Well, it's certainly true that the academic publishing system is leeching a surprising amount of money from both subscribers and authors. What the post doesn't say is why anybody still puts up with it.

The problem is that academic promotion is based largely on publication record, and publication in prestigious (and expensive) journals counts for more. So anyone who had a good paper and published it in an as-yet no-name journal would be throwing away a valuable career chit. And that, in turn, makes it hard for new journals to get established --- particularly if they're established with the idea of stopping the money-suck, which leaves them with very little cash for promotion, or to attract the kind of "big names" that would lend credibility.