Thanks for your view. The last line regarding usage of AI for peer review may come up for ever profit making e journals. They must pay for review, many like us have withdrawn from the review process due to lop sided managements of journals. Time is right to charge for the service from the journal who takes reviewers time however pride or prestigious journal it may be in circulation. Even editorial boards are functioning with similar systems in many journals. Its for the scientists who together can decide to save the authors from paying to journals from publications. With readership down and poor outreach of journals to engage readers, the cost publication in hard copy is high. Many journal have long stopped publishing for physical libraries with few copies. Thanks

This questions has been discussed repeatedly at ResearchGate. Here is a selection:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_many_researchers_think_publishers_journals_should_pay_for_their_content_and_also_for_peer_review/1

https://www.researchgate.net/post/If_there_is_ever_going_to_be_a_time_peer_reviewers_will_be_paid_for_their_services_the_time_is_now/1

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Should_journals_pay_for_peer_review_work/1

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_open-access_journals_reviewers_do_not_get_paid_for_their_job/1

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_dont_journals_pay_reviewers_and_still_sell_publications/1

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_dont_journals_pay_to_reviewers_as_they_bleed_authors_for_publication_fees/1

See also:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Reviewers_participation_should_be_considered_too/1

https://www.researchgate.net/post/What-are-the-benefits-of-being-a-reviewer-for-a-journal/1

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Rewarding_the_work_of_the_referees/1

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why-the-article-reviewing-peer-review-in-Journal-and-Conference-is-a-voluntary-work/1

OK so you keep repeating that the question has been asked before. Fair enough - you clearly follow the topic, for which, it seems, there is no answer. Do you have an answer after following this for some years?

Lack of an answer is no reason to stop asking. Pilate asked in about 35AD "what is truth" and there is still no answer to that question either. It doesn't stop the question being asked, or a continuing search for an answer.

What I should have asked is "What are we going to do about it?"

One solution I have adopted is not to peer review papers for companies like MDPI who are simply out to make money, not advance science. Any publisher that tells me I have a one week deadline is not interested in what I might find, or my workload, they just want to "tick a box".

If enough people do that, it might force a change?

What’s Wrong with Paying for Peer Review?

"When researchers call for payment for review, we might find that the majority are simply asking for recognition. Because we traditionally recognize work with pay, the ‘demand’ is formed as a request for payment. So, instead of getting into a mess by trying to pay them money, we must work harder on rewarding reviewers with other currencies of academia: reputation, recognition, and success.

We acknowledge that there are indeed many underpaid and overworked people in academia, especially among early career researchers. Paying them for peer review is not going to solve that deeper set of injustices. Let’s tackle those injustices directly instead..."

https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2021/06/16/whats-wrong-with-paying-for-peer-review/?informz=1

Peer reviewer fatigue, or peer reviewer refusal?

"Peer review processes are slowing. Existing literature and policies conceptualize this stagnation in peer review as a result of academic fatigue. Here, we instead examine an under-researched factor behind slowed peer review systems: academics refusing to voluntarily review manuscripts for for-profit journals. By synthesizing accounts of peer review refusal from scholarly blogs, journal editorials, and prominent social media movements, we provide an overview of the advantages and disadvantages of this refusal. We then offer some preliminary suggestions for academics to simultaneously safeguard the speed of peer review and voice dissatisfaction with major publishing companies. This piece contributes to the evolving field of peer review studies and provides an alternate conceptualization of the slowing peer review system..."

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08989621.2025.2463977

Effect of Monetary Incentives on Peer Review Acceptance and Completion: A Quasi-Randomized Interventional Trial

"Peer review typically relies on experts volunteering their time to review research. This process presents challenges for journals that may face a shortage of qualified referees, resulting in either delay in handling papers or less thorough review than is optimal. We experimentally tested the impact of providing cash incentives to complete peer review assignments at Critical Care Medicine...

Providing cash incentive for completing peer review reports resulted in a modest increase in the share of invited reviewers who complete reviews for a specialty medical journal."

https://journals.lww.com/ccmjournal/abstract/9900/effect_of_monetary_incentives_on_peer_review.488.aspx

What happens when you pay reviewers?

"Two journals have released data from their own experiments that suggest that offering payments of around US$250 to researchers who review manuscripts speeds up the process, without affecting the quality of reviews. A six-month experiment at Critical Care Medicine, led by clinical scientist David Maslove, found that the motivating effect on reviewers was small. That might be down to “these other values that peer reviewers have, whether it’s a sense of responsibility or loyalty or owing to society”, says Maslove. At Biology Open, payment speeded up reviews so much that the journal is rolling it out more widely. But some specialists warn that the practice could have unintended consequences for science and publishing."

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00968-6

End the unchecked growth of publishing fees and the overreliance on unpaid peer review

A proposed NIH policy to limit allowable publication costs is a good start — but more must be done...

In July, the National Institutes of Health released a request for information seeking public input on a proposed policy to limit allowable publication costs — the portion of grant funds researchers can use to cover journal fees, including article processing charges (APCs). These fees, which can run from hundreds to several thousand dollars per article, are the current price of making scientific work openly accessible to the public.

This request for information marks a long-overdue and necessary conversation for the future of science. While the NIH’s intention to protect taxpayer dollars and maximize the utility of grant funds is commendable, any viable solution must also confront the core dysfunctions of the scientific publication economy: the unchecked growth of publishing fees and the overreliance on unpaid peer labor. Limiting publishing costs without restructuring peer review only patches one leak while another widens...

But without guardrails, the system has grown increasingly exploitative. High publishing costs and a crumbling peer review infrastructure are symptoms of deeper structural issues that reward scientific output but undervalue the labor and resources required to sustain quality scholarship...

The trust also depends on the peer review process — a system that is increasingly broken. If researchers value the peer review process, they must pay for it..."

https://www.statnews.com/2025/08/18/pay-peer-reviewers-allowable-publication-costs-nih-proposal-open-access/