This dillemma is not limited to open access journals, but to big publishers in general. This was also an interesting opinion piece from 2021: http://shankarraman.in/2021/03/31/why-i-will-not-review-or-write-for-elsevier-wiley-and-other-commercial-scientific-journals/

However, reviewing for a fee might also induce unwanted side effects regarding the quality of reviews. So I totally agree that the current model is highly unfair and I don't review for (borderline) predatory journals, but I don't know what a good structural redesign of the peer review sytem should look like!

I found this article very enlightening: https://experimentalhistory.substack.com/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-peer-review

It briefly adresses paying reciewers and cites some sources that show that payment does not increase quality

@Jose, the issue is not limited to peer reviewing. Scholars contribute their research, they review the work of others in print, they do the peer reviewing which guarantees research quality, and they do promotional work - all at no cost to the publishers. The publishers make 'megabucks', none of which returns either to the universities and research institutes which employ researchers, or to the researchers themselves. Am

I wrong?

Thanks, Laurence,

Enough to give away our work. I very much agree with you

So true!

I agree with your discourse. Currently, I only review journal articles that do not require authors to pay to publish or because I am very interested in reading the article (depending on the abstract). This involves checking the journal before answering yes or no.