Even if publishers do not pay the authors for their articles, they provide some services that add value to the articles:
- preparing the definite typeset version of an article (but today, word processing software allows researchers to prepare a clean copy on their computers)
- certifying an article's quality via the journal's reputation for selectivity
- improving the original manuscript by suggestions from reviewers and editors
- distributing the article to those (and only those) allowed to read it
(Armstrong, Mark. “Opening Access to Research.”
Economic Journal 125, no. 586 (August 2015): F1–30.
https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12254.)