You raise several straw men. At the most basic level, a junior author will not be invited to be a peer-reviewer until they have published several papers. A pro

You raise several straw men. At the most basic level, a junior author will not be invited to be a peer-reviewer until they have published several papers. A proportion of academics leave academia before they are invited to review other papers. This means there process has "debt" built in. It's the academic version of "original sin". Regardless, it's still nonsense even if the original sin is repaid. There is no meaningful way in which the pressure to give free labour is bounded. You insinuate that it's balanced: the amount you withdraw should be equal to the amount you deposit. There are absolutely no forces that promote this or enable it; instead, all forces protect the incumbent power structures. You pose a false dichotomy, using the frankly hackneyed "or did you think...?" followed by some baseless suggestion of my expectations. This final question not only doesn't follow from my previous comment, it's so far off track that it "isn't even wrong". But this is all splitting hairs. The process is bankrupt. I stand by my previous points.