[hx8]

Yes, I wouldn't expect someone to pay a few thousand dollars to Nature when PubMed will do the same job for free. I think the role of academic journals is decreasing as open and tech-savvy solutions to information sharing and screening are being deployed.

[Aeolun]

Depends, PubMed will happily take any article. I know for a fact that Nature does it’s own independent review of whatever is published (or did, years ago anyway). It’s not a guarantee of course, there’s been enough instances of review failure even in Nature, but it’s not the same as free access.

Ultimately what you are paying for is curation.