Your points are correct and thoughtful, but you're overlooking something important: a quasi-natural monopoly forms here. When something becomes more valuable by

Your points are correct and thoughtful, but you're overlooking something important: a quasi-natural monopoly forms here. When something becomes more valuable by virtue of its popularity, it takes on its own gravity. It is popular because it is popular, and quickly overshadows everything else. This applies to lots of things like social media platforms, MMOs and publishers. Sure, you can publish on the PDF web server of the high-school kid, but no one will ever see it. You don't HAVE to have your website indexed by Google, but in practice, it'll become invisible because of Google's quasi-natural monopoly. - Do you suppose these kinds of quasi-natural monopolies ought to be regulated? - If it is about prestige as you assert, how would you go around changing this dependence in academia (not a trap; genuinely interested)?