It never really worked otherwise. Even before formal peer review and journals, social standing and political squabbling, finding patrons etc. definitely affected science. The grade school textbook ideal version is a literal lie-to-children. The problem is that threading the needle correctly, without falling over to the other side, of quackery and "the academic mafia is suppressing this perpetual motion machine" and "Big Science" doesn't want to admit that ESP exists etc. can be incredibly hard.