Academic publishing is an increasingly shallow pool. Peer review is a cause.

Can Napster’s temporary ’99 revolt against the music industry offer some insight into this not-so-modern issue?

(Culture karma for each 1999 GIF recognized.)

Peer review is predictable by default.

Peer-reviewed publications are supposed to make research better by ensuring and preserving academic excellence.

It is true that peer review ensures quality work and endorses good science (and by extension, good scientists.) However, like any established meritocracy, the traditional peer review process is self-perpetuating and self-aggrandizing with respect to an existing exclusive elite.

As such, peer-reviewed publications offer a more obvious, efficient route to prestige and funding for institutions and institutionalized scholars.

To do this, peer-reviewed publications are incredibly formulaic. They are not structurally designed to be innovative or inclusive. Researchers not immediately equipped to compete in the entrenched, restrictive system that is peer review, which, deliberately or not, excludes outsiders by privileging insiders, experience depreciation before they’ve even started.