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Almost all scientific journals in my fields currently charge authors to publish, but don't pay reviewers. (Earth Science, Planetary Science, Robotics)

I don't think your idea that publication costs need to increase to pay reviewers is valid. Elsevier et al would just cut some of their obscene bloat.

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I have an inside line to Elsevier. Elsevier will NEVER cut anything, bloat or otherwise.

They will, however, use their market dominance to punish people who rebel against their publishing machine. They've done it consistently every time there's the whiff of shakeup in the publishing industry, going back decades.

Sad face

You are right, they will never do something considered good for the public or research, just because they want to retain their dominance and maximize profits. For example, my old university needs to pay in order to access papers, which they sent in and paid to publish. It's completely crazy.

Fortunately there is https://arxiv.org/ and similar sites. And most researchers are happy to provide you their papers free of cost if you ask.

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