i disagree with the author of this piece about a major premise underlying his thesis: that journals ultimately have no real contribution to the author or commun

i disagree with the author of this piece about a major premise underlying his thesis: that journals ultimately have no real contribution to the author or community that can't be done away with. top tier journals are top tier journals not because of marketing but because of their standards. their standards are high because they enforce rigorous quality control (reviews) and solicit the best, most groundbreaking work in the field. they bring on the best editorial staff and set directions, not following it. arxiv, for example, is not the same as PNAS. anyone can put anything in arxiv, there is no quality control, no editorial board, no selection process. i think that if you tried to demolish that, you'd wind up with a replacement, not a whole new model. to outsiders this all seems capricious, fickle, arbitrary and anachronistic. instead, it's important because science - the forward progression of human knowledge and understanding - relies on ensuring that valid, repeatable results get publish, not falsehoods (e.g. "vaccines cause autism" and such tripe) or outright plagiarisms. journals work because they provide this. top tier journals are recognized as such because they publish the best quality work which attracts more top quality work. w