Don't judge a science by looking at just a few of the people in it... Also to say i think it's a graded thing. Often such type of critique might be serious and

Don't judge a science by looking at just a few of the people in it... Also to say i think it's a graded thing. Often such type of critique might be serious and well developed, often it might be serious but based on misunderstanding, and sometimes it might be an attempt at trolling, annoying or payback. I would guess your average peer reviewer engages more deeply with the paper than most readers and takes time to check their critique before sending it, and since there's an editor involved there might also be a better level of politeness. If now suddenly every reader is free to criticise (assuming they fall in category 1 & 2) that can end up in a barrage of critiques that an author might feel obliged to respond to in order to protect his/her reputation. And still those critiques can then be taken out of context, eg when someone in the media or from the competition tries to put you down a notch for holding the wrong views... Think of anti-vaxers going around and criticising every paper on vaccines. You're always going to find something to criticise and once it's criticised you can point to SG authoritative 'the paper is criticised by other scientists for..' Or another angle: do you want to feel obligated to defend every one of your papers for the rest of your life? This can really feel like bullying even if it's not intended as such. That's in particular if you write about contentious issues or such with strong interest groups - think vaccines, abortion, gender, GMO, lobbying, financial regulation, inequality, race, ... I think open 'peer review/critique' is a good idea, but it can take dark turns if there's no mechanism to prevent this.