> I don't understand why anyone would want to publish anything

Why do research if you don't publish it? It's like running a farm and letting the food rot in the fields every year, nobody eating it. The value of knowledge is sharing it with others.

In a history of technology and science I read, the author pointed out that likely there have been many discoveries that, because they weren't shared outside the village, are lost to time (including because of a lack of widespread literacy). You might add the arts to that - how many great stories were lost?