Comment by locknitpicker

> The preprint papers on arXiv are like 99% the same as the published versions, except they're free instead of locked behind a multi-thousand dollar/year paywall.

I don't think you fully understand the problem. It doesn't matter if you can find in arxiv a preprint of an article published on a reputable journal. What matters is that right besides that paper you will find a dozen other papers that can be utter nonsense generated by a poorly calibrated slop factory. You don't find those in papers published in respectable journals which enforce double blind peer review and were filtered for relevance and quality.

It's that peer review process that creates value and relevance. Otherwise all you have is a glorified file server.