I'm not sure what's supposed to be wrong with "thriving internet status economies" or "reputation and attention." The problem is the "exclusivity" where people have to pay e.g. $45 to read an article often partially or completely funded by taxpayers and with absolutely no value-add other than "reputation and attention," in order to discover it is irrelevant to what they're researching.
In my view, it would be ideal if in an open-access world some editors and/or organizations endorsed and vouched for particular papers, and academics competed intensely for those endorsements, if those endorsements were career-making or career-killing, and those editors/organizations made a living from charging scientists for their consideration and review.
That's not the bad part. If the output is available to everyone to read, I don't see the tragedy.
In my view, it would be ideal if in an open-access world some editors and/or organizations endorsed and vouched for particular papers, and academics competed intensely for those endorsements, if those endorsements were career-making or career-killing, and those editors/organizations made a living from charging scientists for their consideration and review.
That's not the bad part. If the output is available to everyone to read, I don't see the tragedy.