I mostly agree with what you say, but I disagree with this: > Besides - in reality they only the highest profile journals provide any benefits at all. In my d

I mostly agree with what you say, but I disagree with this: > Besides - in reality they only the highest profile journals provide any benefits at all. In my discipline (mathematics) there is a large middle tier of "respectable" journals, that regularly publish good work, including work by well known people. A typical tenure dossier at a middling research department might list say, 15 papers, most of which were in this middle tier, and a couple of which were published somewhere really good. I agree that the system is a cartel and would love to see it collapse. In my opinion, whatever replaced it would need to duplicate the signaling mechanism to succeed.