Would you submit to this journal or any other journal charging for publication that doesn't compensate peer reviewers?

Certainly not going to defend the processes and business model of academic publishers, but I want to stress that peer review is not "arguably the only important part of the article processing." You have editors that have to decide if articles should be immediately desk-rejected for a variety of reasons, and then also find and coordinate peer reviewers. While a lot of proofing is handled automatically thanks to latex templates, there's still a good chunk of work that goes into making submitted articles readable in the first place.

And there's a bunch of IT work that goes into maintaining the systems that display those articles in the first place. There are a lot of people and steps that are important to the article publishing process, not just peer reviewers.

@WhatTheDuck Yes, that are things that are also important, but definitely much less than the review. Moreover, editors often get not compensated either. The text editing is often done professionally, but terribly badly (in my experience). If reviewing was not the most important thing, then authors would just ignore journals and publish on the arXiv only (at least in my field).

@Buffy I didn't suggest payment for reviewers. Moreover, what kind of conflict of interest should arise? Please explain.

In the unpaid reviewer system you give a service to the authors. In the paid model you give it to the publisher and meet their needs, not necessarily those of the authors or academia in general. There is also the issue of limitations on outside employment for professors. If reviewing becomes lucrative, to whom do you owe first allegiance?

@Buffy. I disagree with you regarding whom the service is given. It is always a service primarily to the journal, since its right to exist is based on the peer review, and only secondary to the author, who might decide to ignore your review and publish elsewhere (if the journal ignores your review, they cannot expect you to review for them again). Moreover, where is the conflict of interest in this?

@Buffy I never proposed lucrative payments or employment, but merely a voucher system w/o personal/private benefit, that can only be used to publish with the same publisher or journal. In fact, this system avoids all complications of employment and money transfers.

Walter and @Buffy, It does not need to be lucrative or employment. Both, paying in the form of APCs or cash may be acceptable unless there is a cap enforced by journals/regulatory body on how many papers one person can review in a year. I don't think anyone can make living out of it but reviewers should receive a compensation in someway such that no one is working free in business setting.

@Buffy Another point worth making here is that the Journal as a quite obvious conflict of interest when charging authors. The conflict between profit (accepting bad papers) and that of keeping the science clean (rejecting bad papers). Hence, APC are mostly detrimental for science.

Would you submit to this journal or any other journal charging for publication that doesn't compensate peer reviewers?

Not this again. Some people really want to believe that publishing is free, that the APC is 100% profit (as though the publisher's employees have $0 salaries), that every paper published is charged full APCs, that there are a lot of academics willing to handle lots of papers for free, etc. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: if you believe you can run a journal with no money, prove it. Don't point at the diamond OA journals that already exist - that's like pointing at Messi and saying "look how easy it is to make $100,000 a week playing soccer". Start your own journal - better yet, publisher - and go change the world. After all, you can claim a legitimate competitive advantage.

I'd VTC this question as offensive, but if I'm not mistaken my single vote will close it. It's at least opinion-based, as questions beginning with "should I ..." tend to be. Some questions of this kind people generally agree on, but this one is highly controversial.

Question is not offensive. Some people doesn't seem to understand how free labor is being used to make money—another form of slavery. I hope this will become clear to people sooner or later.

What is the difference between an APC of 10$ and of 10'000$? Additionally, why peer reviewers should get paid, if the authors are providing the content to the journal? you are egoistically arguing for some compensation to the reviewers, but what about the authors?

@EarlGrey Authors want to be paid, reviewers want to be paid, editors want to be paid, the publishers' employees think they should be paid more, and the readers want to read for free. In the world of publishing, everyone wants more money.

@Allure only few innocent guys at the top of the ladder get more money. researchprofessionalnews.com/…. In the world of publishing, the smartest is an idiot.

@Allure Publication costs are no way near 2500 per paper. And to 'prove' the point, there are completely free completely open-access journals, astro.theoj.org for example.

@EarlGrey It's the primary interest of the authors to publish their research, but it is not a primary interest of the reviewer to review or the editors to edit. If you do something that is not in your interest, you should get compensated. Most don't, which also implies that they won't do that job as well as they would if they got paid.

@Walter usually not, yes (see academia.stackexchange.com/questions/52007/…). But don't forget that there are articles with waived APCs, and there are more things that go into publishing than just "publication costs". Why do you think there are no large diamond open access journals? I've worked years in academic publishing and had an inside view as to how much money is needed - I doubt you have.

I was actually aware of the Open Journal of Astrophysics that you linked above, from several years ago when Peter Coles was still at Sussex University. As I recall, the journal started with a few papers, then languished for a long time with no submissions. It was eventually relaunched, this time with publisher support. If you look at the "about" tab of the webpage, it says the journal is published by Maynooth Academic Publishing, which in turn is an arm of Maynooth University where Peter Coles is now at (nuim.libguides.com/OpenPublishing). That shows the journal has external funding.

External funding is like manna - when you have enough of it, everything becomes possible. But it's still external funding. It's limited in quantity, restricting the things you can do, and you still cannot run a journal without money.

By the way, since you cited an astrophysics journal earlier: are you thinking of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (It recently switched to open access and has an APC in the range of $2500)? If so, then there's a relatively easy answer: you should review, because 1) this is a top journal, and 2) they're applying automatic waivers to authors who can't afford it (academic.oup.com/pages/purchasing/…). Granted most publishers do the latter, but OUP are explicit about it.

The edit "excessively" changes the question substantially; maybe this should be asked as a separate question instead. In my view, this new question is more interesting, and with proper wording answerers can accept the premise and suggest what to do in the case of a journal that legitimately overcharges (they do exist).

I'm going to roll back the most recent edit, which substantially changes the question after multiple answers had already been written. But the new edit is a good edit, you may post a new question if you like, in which it is clear from the beginning that this particular journal's overcharging is the key issue.