That’s exactly the point. If you want to be a researcher right now you have to play their game. You have to publish papers even if you don’t have anything. So people publish bullshit, use chatGPT, force their name on papers they haven’t contributed and so on.

Meanwhile the science journals get paid by everyone and pay no one.

Yeah that’s why “science” has become such a failure. There’s no actual progress in forcing people to publish worthless research, forcing worthwhile information behind paywalls, etc. This is a major part of how/why science is used to enforce the extreme privilege of a few at the expense of fascism, violence, planetary destruction, etc. for everyone else.