This needs to be said again. Most scientific journals have per-page charges which can be several hundred dollars per page.
In some cases academic authors are charged less than authors in industry. Most companies will gladly pay the charges for anything published by their employees.
Most journals will publish the articles and then send a bill to the authors. If it is not paid, there is little effort expended to collect it. This is not an up-front barrier to publication.
The idea of charging for publication of an article does not detract from the value of the article, and should not cause these articles to be viewed as worth any less than ones printed in paper journals.