That's a bit harsh--many academic scientists can't do much to change the status quo. I would love to submit to open access journals, but I also really like eating, having a place to sleep, and other indulgences that having a job provides.

As a grad student, one basically doesn't have much say. Postdocs have a bit more latitude, but need to "play the game" to land jobs; pre-tenure faculty are in a very similar position if they want to keep theirs. Even tenured PIs are in a pretty precarious position: many are on soft-money positions (no grants, no salary), all of them need grants, and their trainees also presumably want to move up the grad student -> postdoc -> faculty ladder.

Getting this to change is a massive collective action problem and it's really going to need a push from institutions and the big names at the very top. This holds not just for publications, but a lot of other issues with academia too. I'd love to spend more time making our code solid and publicly available, but there's essentially no payoff for that either.