Not in academia, but have watched the debates over the past decade or so...
It really seems like it's the inertia of existing administrators that haven't shifted away from judging papers based on the prestige of the journals they get published by.
Once the prestige factor goes away, and authors are judged primarily on the quality of their work, the publishers will lose their stranglehold.
Of course, that means a lot of entrenched interests losing revenue streams, so it's going to be a long struggle of grassroots change vs regulatory capture combined with reactionary pushback.
It really seems like it's the inertia of existing administrators that haven't shifted away from judging papers based on the prestige of the journals they get published by.
Once the prestige factor goes away, and authors are judged primarily on the quality of their work, the publishers will lose their stranglehold.
Of course, that means a lot of entrenched interests losing revenue streams, so it's going to be a long struggle of grassroots change vs regulatory capture combined with reactionary pushback.