It's brutally hard. I had an easier time buying skylinesort.com n posting the skylinesort algorithm there, than publishing through professors n academia. Typically not feasible for undergraduates, least of all anybody not paying tuition. Same way professors are expected to have an undergraduate degree at the very least (4 profs at Stanford have just an undergraduate degree), a Master's degree (a handful have that and no more), but typically a PhD is required (literally all the other professors have PhD's). Is required. Who requires it? Who says, "I require a PhD."? Is expected? Who expects it? Who says, "I expect a PhD."? Passive voice is typical in academia. Very rare to get around the gatekeeping, frankly. I couldn't publish on arxiv for years because of lack of academic affiliation alone.

Took years to get to this point in terms of the effort I dedicate to getting recognition for my work.