It’s an amazing business model, if you think about it: the research is paid for my the government, the researchers then send it to the publisher for free, unpaid academics are doing the review for free, and then all universities pay for subscription access (with money that largely also comes from the government).
Input is free, the work is done for free, and then the output is wildly expensive, but paid for by tax payers.
But if someone even mentions guillotines people get mad.
Manche Menschen denken, wenn sie mit einem Problem konfrontiert werden: „Ich weiß, ich verwende Regex.“ Jetzt haben sie zwei Probleme.