At the end of the day, researchers need some way to decide which papers they should read and which they shouldn't. There are too many papers coming out for anyo

At the end of the day, researchers need some way to decide which papers they should read and which they shouldn't. There are too many papers coming out for anyone to read them all. The fact that prestigious journals have a vested interest in not printing crap papers is a helpful filter when deciding what to read. I still think there should be some reform in this area but the journals do provide some value at the moment.