[randomsearch]

Other disciplines do indeed pay reviewers - a friend's partner told me about being paid in the humanities. So it can work as a model.

Regarding the monopoly comment: firstly, you have (usually) a complete monopoly on the content you provide. The same paper is available from one publisher.

If we talk in more general terms, then we're in the classic situation where the monopolist (or oligopolist, which is often used synonymously nowadays) pretends they don't have a monopoly, because they don't want to be punished or reformed. But, even if we took your viewpoint, that strength of market power - 5 companies controlling 50% of the market - is overwhelming.

In practice, Elsevier and Springer control nearly all Computer Science publishing (for example), so the situation is extremely bad.