[brazzy]

It's 100% due to the traditional model of measuring academic performance through the number of published papers weighted (very, very strongly) by the "reputation" of the journal they're published in, justified by the importance of curation and peer review to provide quality control.

Historically, this model grew because the journal publishers provided the necessary infrastructure to print and distribute copies of the articles.

[worik]

My impression is that it is a offshoot of the metrics mania of the 1990s

I am one person watching the world go by but I think that there was, is, far too much emphasis on things that can be counted.

People became afraid to make subjective judgements of quality. They demanded data. So whatever was the thing they counted, it got maximised. Quality is a slippery concept and it is harder than counting.

Judge scientists by the number of papers they publish, and they will publish a lot. A manifestation of the quantifying fetish.