Elsevier is just a symptom of the disease that is academic publishing. We need to get away entirely from the 17th century approach to disseminating scientific knowledge.
But as long as your chance to get a job in academia is proportional to (number of publications * exp(nobleness of journals)), most scientists will just continue playing the same game, and publishers will continue exploiting them.
But as long as your chance to get a job in academia is proportional to (number of publications * exp(nobleness of journals)), most scientists will just continue playing the same game, and publishers will continue exploiting them.