system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why do we need journals and paywalls?

Not sure if this is the right subreddit to post to but i think I might get an answer here. Why are so many papers behind paywalls? Why don´t scientists publish their work on an open archive where everybody can see it and review it? Wouldn´t that be much easier and allow faster peer review?
gpt
There are lots of open journals (PLoS One namely). The reason why people try to publish in paywalled journals despite this is because those are the journals that have the most prestige and impact factor, mostly for historical reasons. Publishing in Lancet or Science or some other prestigious journal is career-making. 

Even within these journals there's sometimes the option of paying extra to make the paper freely available, but it's a steep fee that few researchers want to pay.

Many of us look at the crazy fees and strange vagaries of the current journal system and would prefer to publish on an open platform that's more transparent, but we don't really have a choice.