Offering prestige in 2015 is even more valuable than it has ever been. There is more research published than there has ever been, from all around the world. The amount of research information is increasing dramatically, just like it is with all information (blog posts, videos published, etc). The value of curation increases with the increase in content, it doesn't decrease. I don't know what the future holds when it comes to how curation is going to be done and how prestige will be awarded, but I'm certain that there will be some mechanism for separating good research from bad research and bestowing prestige. That isn't decreasing in value - on the contrary, it's increasing.

"..in practice, it is rare for the police to commence an investigation without a complaint by the rights holder. However, this situation may change. The draft of the request of the US on Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) 15.5(g) stipulates, "its authorities may initiate legal action ex officio with respect to the offenses described in this Chapter, without the need for a formal complaint by a private party or rights holder."

Look at stackoverflow, hackernews as simple examples in different fields.

In general I don't have a problem with the idea of selling curation/prestige in the form of products and services, so I don't think it's a ridiculous thought (either for 2015 or any other time in history). Let's take another example, say publishing a novel. That's something that has also never been easier to do in a wide variety of ways. But self publishing a novel isn't (typically) enough to become a successful author. You need to somehow get your book to stand out as being better than the million other novels that people publish every year. So if someone can offer you a stamp of approval that the general public trusts, that gives people a reason to believe your book is worth their time more than other books, that's a valuable service. And I have no problem with the idea that whoever can offer that service should be able to charge for it.

I think the ridiculous thing in 2015 is that academic prestige is still almost exclusively tied to the name of the journal in which it is published. That I still have a hard time wrapping my head around sometimes. So I imagine that that will eventually change, but I'm not convinced that the process of separating the good from the bad and bestowing that prestige will inevitably be free.

But a big book publisher doesn't just do this for an author. The author gets to leverage the publishers advertising/marketing budget and connections.

I don't find it ridiculous at all. Just because it's intangible doesn't mean it doesn't have economic value. As I mentioned elsewhere, a considerable amount of that economic value comes from non-scientists who can't evaluate work themselves but can look at the organ of publication as a rough proxy for scientific value.

The HARD thing that need to change is actually simple: it's laziness, and fear, powered heavily by lobbying publishers. Scientists are smart people, all they need is a kick in the butt.

Considering the kicking they've been getting from the publishing lobby, perhaps a more emollient metaphor is called for :)

The problem here is that prestige is a real economic good even though you'd rather it wasn't. So boycotting the good journals as an author is a terribly risky strategy. It's free to publish on sites like Arxiv, and scientifically good stuff will get a certain amount of kudos from other scientists, but it's not obvious when you go to Arxiv what's hot and what's not. What you need is something with the openness of Arxiv, the signalling value conferred by the selectivity of journals like Nature, Science, or the leading journals in scientific subfields, and (ideally) some way to winnow out stuff that is clearly total crap. And once you have a basic version of this platofrm (which should not be terribly hard to build, but will cost some money (and should probably not be built by scientists themselves, because they are terrible at making web pages)), is a contractual commitment of some sort to get a critical mass of people to agree tp move to that platform instead of submitting to existing journals. IT's not going to work if people do it in dribs and drabs because nobody wants to be the first person to undergo the experiment which may Destroy Their Career. You need a crowdfunding approach - not so much to raise the actual funds but in terms of creating a tipping point - such that everyone keeps submitting to journals and basically doing what they do now until (say) 30% of working scientists are signed up to the new system. When that target is reached, everyone in that signup group moves to the new platform and sticks with it for an agreed-upon minimum period, come hell or high water. You need some sort of a big bang event to make this work because scientists don't have all that much political capital in the western world, and you're getting into a fight with people who have a lot of economic capital and (frankly) who understand politics better than most scientists.

You may find it instructive to study the history of London stock exchange and its 'big bang': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_(financial_markets)