This is an incredibly ignorant and insulting comment. Nobody goes into science to get rich. And job security at 40 is hardly the primary goal either.
The majority of scientists go into science to add to the common pool of knowledge. For many, seeing their work being used in a positive way is extremely gratifying.
The pay walls are not the choice of most scientists. There is a push towards open-access, but it's not easy. To publish a single open-access article a scientist must pay thousands of dollars. For example, a single article in BMC bioinformatics costs US$1805. This must come out of already hard fought for and limited grant money, money that must also pay the salaries of many younger scientists still in training.
Good intensions doesn't counteract the outcome of bad incentives. Obviously tenure isn't about being rich - but it is about being independent in your work. The system produces behaviors in its "publish or perish" style that are centered on building your metrics for getting tenure / status recognition.
How many conference intros have we all heard that say, "X person has been published X times and in Y journals". Are you saying you've never heard advisors talk about splitting articles up and the like? How about the decline of repeating published experiments?
These aren't isolated incidents at all. Status seeking is in all of us, and I don't consider it a bad thing. The metrics just need to be aligned with the goals of the endeavor - furthering knowledge.
Currently, we have a system where most grad students are chattel slaves seeking PhDs for a tenure track positions that 95% won't be able to get. So competitive is the tenure system that people are doing the above things to have a chance.
It's like the idealist-activist who becomes a pragmatic-politician and learns along the way the cruel facts of life and the system. If that's an ignorant or insulting point of view, then welcome to humanity... ;-)
The majority of scientists go into science to add to the common pool of knowledge. For many, seeing their work being used in a positive way is extremely gratifying.
The pay walls are not the choice of most scientists. There is a push towards open-access, but it's not easy. To publish a single open-access article a scientist must pay thousands of dollars. For example, a single article in BMC bioinformatics costs US$1805. This must come out of already hard fought for and limited grant money, money that must also pay the salaries of many younger scientists still in training.