The problem with distributed, grass roots peer review is that you get poor quality reviewers. The current structure is slow and very "old media", but it is thi

The problem with distributed, grass roots peer review is that you get poor quality reviewers. The current structure is slow and very "old media", but it is this way because it's the only way to guarantee quality peer reviews. If journals cease to exist, and a new publish-it-anywhere-then-publicize-it paradigm emerges, along with some associated metrics (kinda sorta like Reddit), then I predict that conference presentations will become the new metric of success. They have gatekeepers, and scarcity due to limited bandwidth (i.e. there are a limited number of time slots available). The whole journal publishing infrastructure will just be shifted over to conferences... along with the ecosystem of for-profit vs. trade group, etc., and the Slowness and Single Mode of Publication problems that the OP describes.