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Comment by YeGoblynQueenne | Hacker News Reader

Didn't you say that it costs money to peer review 15 articles, and reject 14? It's unpaid reviewers and editors who do virtually all the work to peer review and accept or reject articles, so why does it cost money to do all that? Where does the money go?

I mean, I'm interested to know. I peer review for a few journals and I never make a dime, so where does all the money go?

Come to that, why don't I get paid? It takes days to review one journal article. Why is Springer or Elsevier making money from my toil and I make jack shit?

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For greater detail, see my responses at

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35657217

and

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35657036

I don't know specifically about Springer and Elsevier. From elsewhere in this thread, I learned that they expect the editors to do all the work recruiting reviewers and do it for free. I don't support that model. For publishers that assign internal staff that get paid a salary to help Editors recruit reviewers, it is far from unreasonable to spend $3K recruiting reviewers for 15 papers, even while the actual work of reviewing is unpaid.

Sorry but I just don't believe that. Why would you pay people to do all that job when you can get an automated system to do it, or a researcher? That just sounds like trying to sell services that nobody needs and demanding to be paid for it.

I am pretty sure we very quickly in this discussion jumped from "what the state of the industry is" to "what the state of the industry ought to be", a very common debate failure point. I am just telling you what the case is. When you say you don't believe me, you don't present an argument that demolishes my case and says why I am wrong, you are just telling me that the industry is not doing what it could be doing. But what you originally asked me is "I mean, I'm interested to know. I peer review for a few journals and I never make a dime, so where does all the money go?"

I told you exactly where the money goes. You are entitled to an opinion that it's a bad way to spend the money, and that's fine. I happen to think that it's a suboptimal way to spend the money as well. But your question of "where does all the money go?" has been answered properly.

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