Academics forced to do unpaid peer review labor for predatory open-access journals

Researchers face ethical dilemmas when invited to review manuscripts for journals that charge authors high publication fees while offering reviewers no compensation for their time and expertise. This creates a system where academics subsidize publisher profits through free labor while authors—especially early-career researchers and those from underfunded institutions—bear financial burdens to publish. Current solutions fail because there's no coordinated way to identify which journals are exploitative or to collectively refuse participation.