Publishers, I would hazard, are not ideal gatekeepers. The Internet is a wonderful communications medium through which much better filters, gatekeepers and quality monitors can be created and used. There can be many of them, and people can find ones they like and trust, and contribute to them as they wish, etc.
Most of the posts in this thread (besides the off-topic posts
) have discussed the situation as a false choice: publishers, or no filter/gatekeeper for readers. That is absolutely not the case, and everyone here knows that.