I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that universities aren't the bastions of knowledge sharing that we want them to be. I just think it's sad.
Every museum and archive could put up torrents just like the IA and take as a duty to guide the public through these torrents, feel certain that they would be maintained forever through minimal effort, that their reach would be the widest possible, and that the insights that could be built from people studying that work would be exponential. But that would largely cut the museum out of the process, and the purpose of the museum is mainly to preserve the museum. Instead they hand write inscrutable dogshit interfaces that prioritize preventing any sort of download or mirroring over any other concern, especially searchability or organization.
Museums started as wealthy individual collectors bragging with their personal collections to get clout, or as attractions in the manner of theme parks constructed to get people to pay admissions fees. We only mistake them for charities because it's easy to trick us into subsidizing them through tax. These are vehicles for people's lucrative careers. People with the kinds of institutionalized minds who can't figure out how not to work for elsevier for free. Upper middle-class people solely motivated by personal achievement.
Museums are far more selfless than universities.
https://www.louvre.fr/en/online-tours#virtual-tours
Elsiever's famous for acting that way. Yale, Harvard, Cambridge are known for the same.
Try exploring doing anything with academic publications. Every use falls into about the same case as the archive.org case. "We own an indefinitely copyright that lasts 70 years after our institution collapses, and if you're even allowed to read the articles without paying a fortune ($50 to find it's a 2 page scam publication, $10,000 for a subscription), you may only do so for personal consumption with no distribution." https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies-and-standards/pricin...
The prices are funny. Ever heard of "Applied Surface Science", 0169-4332? $25,462 subscription for surfaces ... that are applied. How about "Colloids and Surfaces A", 0927-7757? $20,167 subscription to find out whether you'd ever care. Frankly, all journals with the word "surface" are expensive. Magazine prices be like "daaaamn" (Friday). To be fair though, you can learn how to anesthetize your own subjects (Advances in Anesthesia) for $282.
Review completely happens in the dark if you really pay attention. Peer reviewed? Do you peer review their articles? Have you ever actually met anybody who does? They always seem to be in far away fortress schools you never meet with fancy title names like the "Dogsworth Diapers Emeritus Lifetime Chair of El Supremo Tacos." In years of academia, I think I got asked to look at a paper once for a prof. who was lazy.
The only way they're a "bastion" is in the sense of a medieval fortress paywall that takes away all opportunities, does nothing with what they've hoarded, and then stacks money for score like a game mechanic.
Obvious, I'm a huge fan of modern academia. Take all above as somewhat bias.