first, sometimes there are publication fees on the author end. on the buyer end, university libraries buy huge bundles of journal subscriptions for millions pe

first, sometimes there are publication fees on the author end. on the buyer end, university libraries buy huge bundles of journal subscriptions for millions per year to give access to everyone at their institution. this is essentially enterprise sales and the publishers are really good at it using all the typical tactics for winning lucrative contracts. and the universities don't want to just tell their researchers to use sci-hub, although I think e.g. UC Berkeley essentially did this with a nudge and a wink a few years ago during negotiations.