The companies themselves aren't the problem, they are a symptom. The real problem is governments, especially the US government, that happily use their monopoly on the use of force to help such companies enforce such business models.
Elsevier could well come up with a business model that isn't purely based on extraction, rent-seeking and legal intimidation, but the problem is that governments possess legal resources that have good-faith use cases?
Companies. They come from companies, which are how greedy business models manifest in the real world.