This is how smaller communities die. They get infested with state actors and the paradigm shifts on some of the stupidest, dipshit topics.

Swinging hard and missing with the ‘uhh but x country is worse’. Okay dude.

Depends on the journal I guess, my wife worked at multiple publishers and there’s normally an insultingly small stipend for the editorial board members and writers

Reviewers and writers actually do get a stipend, but it’s a token amount like 200 bucks a year. This industry is the most ass backward incentive structure we could possibly create, the only reason writers would provide articles to a journal is literally for the clout.