Comment by sleavey

I agree with the sentiment but I do think the service journals provide was once worthwhile, before the web, as disseminaters of academic knowledge. Universities paid a subscription fee for physical copies of journals, allowing their employees to keep up to date with what was happening in the world of science. Once the web took off the proposition was no longer good value, as scientists could bypass publishers. It just took two decades for academia to change the habit of a century.