[cubaia]

The value of a publisher these days is not about the cost of publishing anymore (for obvious reasons, like text editing technology and the Internet).

Today it's almost 100% about the prestige/brand recognition of the journals which they still control.

Journal prestige still matters because: (i) it's a way people can quickly determine the value of a paper (i.e. without reading it); and (ii) "where" you publish has direct impact on researchers careers, funding, etc.

The only way out is for the research community to start using other means of ranking papers and assessing the impact of research in a way that doesn't depend on which journal it got published.