[tomkat0789]

You're not wrong. There was a legendary librarian named Jeffrey Beall who cataloged a whole little industry of predatory scientific publishing. Here's a quick article that mentions his work: https://publons.com/blog/bealls-list-gone-but-not-lost/

It'll be a long time before the traditional journals lose influence, but lots of the newer journals that arose were scams or ways for professors to publish what they wanted. It's a mess.