> Journals are usually intended to be venues for experts to talk to each other, not even "professionals in the field".
This made sense when communication was slow and the back and forth of discourse could take weeks to months. But publishing your work in a way that thousands of other readers can consume it is easier now that it's been ever, so it stands to reason that sharing the results of scientific works may yield better outcomes if it takes on a different form.
There's a whole Internet to post important results on without waiting for peer review. If you're an established practitioner in your field making claims that are straightforward to follow, other practitioners will probably read you.
People keep saying peer review is just a sanity check but no one seems to really grasp it. I get it because internet discourse has overblown the validity of peer reviewed articles to an insane degree.
Peer review is just a sanity check. Authors and scientists and studies and papers are important or not independent of the peer review process.
This made sense when communication was slow and the back and forth of discourse could take weeks to months. But publishing your work in a way that thousands of other readers can consume it is easier now that it's been ever, so it stands to reason that sharing the results of scientific works may yield better outcomes if it takes on a different form.