Learn · Publishing
Peer review is under strain, and there are two popular fixes: pay the reviewers, or move publishing to open repositories. Both have a point, and they are less opposed than they look. Here is why, and where the money actually is.
After this guide you will be able to:
Whatever the system becomes, a peer-reviewed paper still decides careers today. A PhD student needs peer-reviewed publications for the thesis, the first job, the fellowship, the grant. For the person who has to publish this year, "let us replace journals" is not a plan they can use. So peer review is not going away. The question is how to fix the strain on it, not whether to keep it.
Why it has a point
Reviewing is skilled, unpaid work. A good review takes hours and genuinely improves the paper. Demand outstrips supply, reviewer fatigue is real, and publisher profit margins are high, so paying the experts who do the work looks fair.
Why people worry
The money has to come from somewhere. If it lands on authors as higher fees, publishing gets more expensive for those who can least afford it. And a fee can attract fast, shallow reviews, or "reviewer mills". Publisher trials in 2025 gave mixed results.
Why it has a point
In "publish, review, curate", you post the preprint to a repository, review it in the open, and curate the good work. Journals like eLife now publish every reviewed paper together with its reviews. The review becomes open, credited, and attached to the paper. It is cheaper and faster.
Why people worry
Someone still pays. Open access shifts the cost from readers to authors: an article processing charge (APC, the fee an author pays to publish open-access) can run into thousands. And open review still relies on unpaid reviewers. Recognition is not a wage.
Here is the point the two debates share. The system is not short of money. Authors already pay, through article processing charges, page charges, and their institutions' subscriptions. So the question is not whether there is money for review. It is where the author's money goes.
Today, much of it becomes publisher margin, and little or none reaches the reviewer who did the work. Seen that way, "pay the reviewers" and "cheaper open publishing" are not really opposites. A growing number of researchers argue they are the same request: that the cost authors already carry should fund the review and the open record, not the margin. That is why both sides can have a point at once. One names who deserves paying; the other names where the money should come from.
What this does not settle. This is a systems debate, and no single journal will end it. But notice what does not depend on the outcome: the review you write. Paid or unpaid, on a journal or a repository, a signed, fair, confidential review is worth more than a fast one, and that part is entirely in your hands.
Whatever the economics settle on, review well now.
You cannot fix the incentives of academic publishing on your own. You can control the quality of the review you write: telling a real methodological flaw from a preference, keeping the manuscript confidential, and writing a review you would sign. The Reviewer's Notebook is the field guide and a local-first triage tool for exactly that, so that whether or not reviewers are ever paid, the review you give is one that improves the paper and holds up.
See the Reviewer's Notebook · €39See also how to peer review a paper and how to respond to reviewers, the two sides of the review itself. More guides are on the Learn page.