One thing that I failed to mention:
Publishing companies are the reason scientific articles are not available to all. They used to serve as a mediator of peer review and editing alone; they do still serve this purpose, but scientist must pay to publish. Publishing companies then charge non-paying members an often high fee to view the article. This is a double whammy that no one enjoys. And no, we get no monetary reward for views, etc. We simply get to keep our jobs.
I know. Experienced it for a while.