The obvious negative this has on folks outside of research-level academia is a significant contribution to tuition prices, which seem to be rising at about 5% per year.
But a less obvious - and personally very painful - consequence of greedy publishers is the inability to do serious academic research outside of academia/industry. I have the ability (math PhD) and the will (have published a few papers post grad school, though it's hard to find time), but I have all but given up due to lacking access to books and articles behind these paywalls. Yes, you can find a decent chunk of articles online -- but very often there are one or two (or more!) key papers you _need_ to read to be at the front of a field, and one of those will be behind a paywall. The worst part is that I never know how truly useful an article will be before reading it, so in the few cases where I've payed I find that only a small percentage of the time was it worthwhile.
In short, this system essentially kills research outside of academia / industry.
I do, and they require $500/year for library use by non-students/staff.
Even if some people are lucky enough to have university library access, the problems caused by a broken publishing system still pose a barrier to many independent people.
But a less obvious - and personally very painful - consequence of greedy publishers is the inability to do serious academic research outside of academia/industry. I have the ability (math PhD) and the will (have published a few papers post grad school, though it's hard to find time), but I have all but given up due to lacking access to books and articles behind these paywalls. Yes, you can find a decent chunk of articles online -- but very often there are one or two (or more!) key papers you _need_ to read to be at the front of a field, and one of those will be behind a paywall. The worst part is that I never know how truly useful an article will be before reading it, so in the few cases where I've payed I find that only a small percentage of the time was it worthwhile.
In short, this system essentially kills research outside of academia / industry.