I can not answer your last question, but I have some thought about the rest of your discussion. I can start by saying, we academics, all over the world are probably the cause of these bad conditions. We are the accused in the first row. We are guilty of! It is hard to believe that several years ago and before that in past century, we could not even think that we need or we have to pay for publishing our papers. Like Z Gen, that don't have any Ideas about the world before the internet, and how it was, or was moving, many young researchers in the world of academia don't have any idea about the mechanism of scientific publishing before.

Are not the coined terms such as predatory publishing, predatory journals, Gift/Guest/Ghost & Honorary authorship (3G+H) and some others belong to internet age? Now from graduate students to full professors are under back breaker and constant pressure, from their heads, departments, deans, research committees , parent organizations, and other with what ever their names are or call themselves.

They only want papers, published ones, in top journals, international ones. It is a full scale race, I call it paper rush (after gold rush) in all continents, countries, cities and universities. Those so called university rankings that again are the phenomena of internet age, added problems to this dilemma. They are also appearing like mushrooms, every several months via a search or by a piece of research or so called piece of research we hear about a new "comprehensive" univ ranking system. We are entering the situation that now even universities want to have their own univ ranking for all over the world. Some saying that this one or that one ranking is biased or some thing like this. Several people sit in a room, calling it the headquarters, making several tables, , copying a loose and weak method or idea behind other univ ranking systems (that themselves have many problems) and searching the web, easily get a URL and uploading what they want. Manipulating what ever they want. Doing what ever they want, in the name of science! Who sees them? all, you and all of us know.

Innocent young people see them and think this or that university is the best, those officials in this or that univ see them, and show off their place and ranking it that univ ranking, those univs which don't have a good or acceptable place in this or that ranking, wont discourage, they search and find the ranking that show their place as a good one or excellent one. All fails? put more pressure on all those involved, from students to professors to publish. Want tenure? publish, want to graduate? publish, want to start a job in the world of academia? publish, want to be a member of the hall of science fame? publish...

In this line of rush or race, publishers also see every thing, better than all of us. They know their supreme powers over us, now.

We are not in the age of "The World of Learning", ISI and even ugly "publish or perish" culture anymore, we are in the age of paperdemic, age of full scale plagiarization, data fabrication, fraud, and misconducts known up to now in the history of science, all are hidden as far as possible up to the time that they Fall out from behind the curtain. That is why as a part, the database of "retraction watch site" is updated daily or several time a day.

The publishers of the world of science that know how the world of academia is thirsty for publications, know to play chess, know how to move and act in this profitable world wide market. It is a cat and mouse game, but unfortunately we in the world of academia are not as lucky as Jerry that used to win over Tom. It is a reality that in all cases the real meaning of the cat and mouse game is applicable to us! So we all witnessing the goal of science is not better life for the human, but the ultimate goal is to see ones manuscript published!

You talked about hundreds or thousands of USD, when it is a noticeable sign of warning for you (in US), imagine what pain people are bearing in countries that the highest salary for a full prof is just several hundred USD per month.

There are many cases that people have to get big loans from banks and pay instalments for several years with big interest rates, just to pay the expenses of publishing their papers, unfortunately many of them useless, or even harmful but as money is involved, journals, whether the real ones or predatory , publish them, and now the other part of problem starts.

What is it? Those with their published papers move up the rank in the world of academia, take scientific posts, occupy editorial and managerial posts, thinking that they know every thing about science and advancement of science, make the other believe that they are experts, then doing the same to others (future/would be students, lower rank academic staff, ...) and this is what we can call it "Vicious cycle". That is why I say we are in a real cat and mouse game!

* For those researchers that see this answer by me for the first time,

I usually write these things, in my own initiated discussions and also others, so if interested, I kindly refer you to my research page

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rahim-Alijani/research

Thank you Rahim Alijani

There are lists of "free to publish" and open-source journals, but none tend to take review papers unless they are systematic reviews with meta-analyses or unless the person who wrote it is "well-established" in the area (whatever that truly means). I have written a review, and intend to work on addressing the open questions I outlined. You can see the review on my own page. I would prefer not to leave it as a preprint because 1) the wonderful world of academia does not put any faith in something that is not peer-reviewed, and 2) I do not want to chase down answers that other, likely more experienced researchers, might already have addressed and I simply missed it.

I have been cautioned by previous advisors to never pay for a publication. I have one manuscript under review (at JSP), but it is a series of 3 experiments conducted over 3-4 years, and my interests shifted slightly since the data collected was completed. Again, feel free to see my page for more details. I am aware of the increasing competitiveness of academia, and would still like to seek a career in both teaching and research, but without those coveted publications, even in lower-tier or "free" journals, my chances of landing an interview are not that great.

That being said, I would like to think that the quality of the papers would be judged instead of the prestige or reputation of the journal. I want peer reviews so that I can improve, and so I can learn about the process before volunteering to be a reviewer myself (for open-source or free-to-publish journals).

You're welcome Samuel Birkholz

I visited your page and saw your researches. I will read the preprint you talked about. May be some suggestions could be found.

Also as in your researches I saw you used to work on stem cells. Feel free to visit my publication page, as far as I can remember I had published some papers regarding researches on stem cells from the viewpoint of Scientometrics, two or three of them are ISI ranked.

In response to my own inquiry, it is worth noting that individuals may find it beneficial to engage in writing book reviews for scholarly journals. Upon conducting my own thorough search, it is widely agreed upon that graduate students have the opportunity to contribute book reviews to journals of all notoriety. The provision of reviews is also crucial for newly published works as it enables potential purchasers to make informed decisions. Additionally, graduate students stand to benefit from this process by acquiring experience in peer review and enhancing their knowledge base.