This isn't the best comparison, since journals publish the reviewed articles, not the reviews themselves.
It's more like whether Amazon should pay the people who decide what should be in the Amazon Basics line, which I suspect they do.
It's more like whether Amazon should pay the people who decide what should be in the Amazon Basics line, which I suspect they do.
But anyone who has tried knows its very hard to do for free. Just ask the mods of HN whether they want to work for free and the costs to them to maintain a standard.
One can imagine a world where high-quality reviewing entities exist and attract top researchers without being profit-driven publishers.
Sometimes people agree to review articles because they get to see research before everyone else.