What is the scum part here?
I think the fair value of what Elsevier (say) provide is > $0, but it's interesting to compare with say Spotify or Netflix - who actually have to pay for content.
Speculating: the reason they slap a $50 charge "per paper" for non affiliated access is that they don't actually care about those sales, that's not where their revenue comes from. Essentially that is the "sucker price".