I can speak on behalf of scientists, whom I know a lot of, as well as institutions, of which I've worked for several (private for- and non-profit, and public), and say that no one sees it as a good thing. It's a vestige from a time when papers had to be printed in journals, and journals had to be delivered in hard copy form all over the world. That's expensive. It's no longer expensive, but we still pay. A lot. To read a given paper might cost you $30. To publish it might cost me (or rather, my institution) $1500. So the journals are double dipping, charging me to publish and you or your library to access it. Back when Congress passed the law that all government funded research has to be publicly available, the publishing lobby successfully argued for a one year embargo. In 2015 it's beyond comprehension. But people trust the names that come with journals, so they still have us by the nutsack. I wish I could just jeep a blog of my results, positive or negative, and let the quality be judged, but that's not ever gonna happen.