@diresock @roboneko @Elliptica @Owl @Tripp
Thing is, let's say you close down academic research as it exists today, and let the internet autists do it instead. You're eventually just gonna end up with the same thing again, just not taking place in universities.
The peer-review process is just a fancy word for what internet autists do, try their best to debunk a claim. As the autism-review process will grow, you'll start seeing the same things appearing. You'll have autists collaborating and co-authoring their original research or debunking YouTube videos. You'll have autists seeking prestige, and gaining it. You'll eventually have autists who will have the trust of their peers because of their successful work, and autists who will seek to leach on that success to get a head start in their autism career.

As for private institutions, they tend to be a lot more greedy, looking for immediate results, and may be less interested in long term research, even if it may end up critical for even their own survival. You're not gonna get manufacturing industries interested in studying if by any chance we might be destroying the planet through pollution. We've seen time and time again how the private sector is more than willing to either hide research, or create fake studies to distract you from the fact that they're slowly killing you or giving you cancer. Just one example of many:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnJSHdEP1N0

So relying on the private sector is not a solution, and switching to internet autists is at best a temporary mend, as the corruption will begin anew, because it is simply human nature. Whether it's the current academic researchers or the future internet autists, we need to learn to hold these people accountable and to levy severe criticism when their failures or lies have large negative impacts on society. So why delay the inevitable and wait for the autist takeover of research for us to act, when we could do it right now when it comes to academia?