Publishers shot themselves in the foot. The unbelievable rate at which they have increased subscription fees was first noted decades ago -- these greedy companies can try to make excuses, but the "serials crisis" predates the Internet. No library should go broke trying to pay journal subscription fees.

If these companies had been less greedy and less annoying with their paywalls (seriously, even when your library has a "Spring subscription," you still get hit by paywalls) they would have a much easier time defending themselves. At this point, though, I think it is fair to say that publishers should be cut out of the loop entirely -- universities should spend their money hosting archives instead of paying subscription fees, and distribution should be done entirely over the Internet (perhaps using BitTorrent to distribute large archives). If publishers have something to bring to the table other than editing (which is done by volunteers in many journals, so what claim to publishers even have on that?), let them bring it.