I think it is a technology problem, because the journals exist in the first place to solve a technology problem: How to distribute, quality assure etc a paper.

I think it is a technology problem, because the journals exist in the first place to solve a technology problem: How to distribute, quality assure etc a paper. Without internet this obviously cost a fair amount of money. Nobody was going to just print copies of journals and distribute them for free. I doubt a system like the journals would have developed in a world where internet already existed. I think a variation of the system used to build the Linux kernel could have worked for scientific papers as well. In the Kernel you have a pyramid of trust. Linux trust some people directly, who again each trust another set of people. This continues downwards. In this fashion code can be signed off and bubble up through the hierarchy. I suspect in similar fashion a scientific paper could bubble up by being reviewed by ever more respected scientists in a hierarchy.