[noitpmeder]

I mean your methodology also sounds suspect. You're just going down a list until it sticks. You don't care where it ends up (I'm sure within reason) just as long as it is accepted and published somewhere (again, within reason).

[antasvara]

No different from applying to jobs. Much like companies, there are a variety of journals with varying levels of prestige or that fit your paper better/worse. You don't know in advance which journals will respond to your paper, which ones just received submissions similar to yours, etc.

Plus, the t in me from submission to acceptance/rejection can be long. For cutting edge science, you can't really afford to wait to hear back before applying to another journal.

All this to say that spamming 1,000 journals with a submission is bad, but submitting to the journals in your field that are at least decent fits for your paper is good practice.

[niek_pas]

Scientists are incentivized to publish in as high-ranking a journal as possible. You’re always going to have at least a few journals where your paper is a good fit, so aiming for the most ambitious journal first just makes sense.

[jll29]

It's standard practice, nothing suspect about their approach - and you won't go lower and lower and lower still because at some point you'll be tired of re-formatting, or a doctoral candidate's funding will be used up, or the topic has "expired" (= is overtaken by reality/competition).

[mathematicaster]

This is effectively standard across the board.

[azan_]

Are you at all aware of how scientific publishing works?