[nullc]

The journals do not provide the peer reviewers, it's _peer_ review after all. The reviewers are more unpaid academics. The journal's involvement is running an automated submission system that passes draft publications between authors and reviewers, and maintaining a list of reviewers (mostly built from previously published authors).

Some journals have paid editorial staff however, that do useful things like copyediting. In exchange, the public has to pay $15-$30/ea (or whatever, it depends on the journal and field) for access to your papers; probably forever.

It's a rent seeking industry that would make even the the music recording companies blush. Yes, they do some useful facilitation, but it's not commensurate with the (completely externalized) cost.