[zozbot234]

> There is still hope that one of these days, young academics will choose to simply not publish there anymore, and when the old guard dies off so will interest in the old information silos.

This will happen a lot quicker if more people work to improve FAIRness (Findability, Accessibility, Interop, Reusability) of content and information that's outside proprietary silos already. Whether old content that has become legally available due to its age, or content that's been published openly in the first place. That's what it would take for people to ignore the silos outright.

> ...if the IP-holding ghoulish husk of Elsevier is snapped up by an IP troll.

Most large publishers are pretty much IP trolls anyway. The incentives inherent in IPR regulation, combined with large monopoly power, push them towards that model.