> Corporations like Elsevier have successfully executed takeovers of research centers (universities) and made journal submission a mandatory rite of passage for academics joining the state-mandated academia funnel.

I...think the causality on this is wrong.

"Publish or perish" long predates Elsevier's rapacious consumption of journals. The reason they did that in the first place is because they already knew it was, in effect, a captive audience.