Well, as for non-‘vanity journals’, I would say the anonymous peer review process. Similarly, the publishing process after the initial anon peer review process

Well, as for non-‘vanity journals’, I would say the anonymous peer review process. Similarly, the publishing process after the initial anon peer review process can be generative + a healthy back and forth revision process. Plus it has the potential to take you out of sub-sub discipline echo chambers w/r/t some aspects of methodologies and other approaches to even writing/explication. Largely, though, I would say from both sides, (I.e. reader and scholar), the journal and all that comes with it (I.e. peer review process, the academic press and their branding, in some disciplines the main editors can also lend something to this) lend a greater degree of credibility and confidence in the expertise of the scholar(s). I mean this in a sort of take it for what it is, the positive and the unseemly all at once, sort of way.