99% of science is a waste of time, not just the papers. We just don't know which 1% will turn out not to be. The point is that this is making progress. As such, these 99% definitely are adding to the collective knowledge. Maybe they add very little and maybe it's not worth the effort but it's not nothing. I think one of the effects of AI progress will be allowing to extract much more of the little value such publications have (the 99% of papers might not be worth reading but are good enough for feeding the AI).