That’s a survivorship bias. Running a small group is easier, of course, than a large organization (though I’m not sure how much this get offset by the large organization having more resources and the advantage of size), but I suspect there is something else going on there. When there are small groups, there can be many small groups, and the inefficient ones can die leaving only the successful efficient ones. Large organizations are too often “too big to fail”.
Not to mention that system started about four centuries ago, long before the Internet was invented. I’d assume that back then, the costs and effort of operating a journal really did justify the prices they charged.
We have the many-worlds interpretation that makes perfect sense (as long as you accept that consciousness is just a function of the particles in your brain and not some spiritual essence detached from the laws of physics), but Niels Bohr had to convince everyone that Quantum Mechanics is not supposed to make any sense just so that he could win his argument against Albert Einstein, so now everyone think it’s just another interpretation on equal footing with the Copenhagen nonsense.