The classical academic journals works with pre-publication peer-review. That means, the author is submitting his manuscrupt to the journal, they have 6 months time to read the paper and then the journal will reject the manuscript because of it's low quality and missing of innovation. Why is such a system remarkable stable for at least 100 years? It has mainly to do with the workflow of how journals are authors are creating new manuscripts. The technology they used is printing based. That means, the author is using a mechanical typewriter and the journal is using a steam-driven printing press.
Now, let's take a look how the typical phd-dissertation is written in the year 2018. The surprising information is, that the workflow is very oldschool. That means, the phd-candidate is using MS-word, prints out every iteration for manual proofreading it off-screen and the final dissertation is printed out in a copy shop and gets a leather binding which costs alone 100 US$. It is possible to build on top of this outdated workflow something different from a pre-publication peer-review? No way.
Now I want to describe the alternative. At first, the creation process has to be adapted. A digital only manuscript is the result. That means, the paper is written entirely onscreen, and no draft version are printed out. Also the final manuscript isn't printed out, it is simply a pdf file on the computer. Then PDF file is send to the publisher, which also never print it out, but put the information direct on the webserver, so that everybody can read it. This wonderful state-of-the art workflow has only a minor problem. It is not used in reality. It is not the way how current phd-candidates or current academic journals are working. They are preventing modern technology because they are not familiar with it, or because they are in fear, that there is much resistance against trying out new things.
The funny thing is, that an all-electronic workflow and post-publication peer-review is the same. If the author and the journal are not printing out the manuscript they are able to put the content first on the webserver, and ask only in the second run if the quality is high enough. In my opinion, only post-publication peer-review is a real peer-review. Because only if the potential peers are not aware that a manuscript is under the way, they can decide to read it. The problem is not, that a wrong paper gets published, the problem is, that classical academic publishing has no plan to handle wrong information. It is simply not possible, that Elsevier published first a manuscript and retract the paper later because there is something wrong with it. Instead, every manuscript which is published is valid.
If we are reading carefully in the papers published from 1950-2010 we will noticed that nearly 100% of all citations are positive citations. That means, author 1 cites author 2 because he has the same opinion and adds only minor comments. All the authors and publishers are basically saying the same, and have the same understanding of science. There is no debate, instead academic publishing works like an ivory tower.
Electronic publishing and post-publication peer-review are both disruptive technologies. That means, they are working differently to what is known in the past. It is something which is not invented yet. As far as I know, there is no electronic publisher out there. It is something which wasn't invented yet. The only place in which peer-review and electronic publication works right know, is an imaginary future called Open Science, which is a plot only available on powerpoint presentation but not in reality. Open Science is indeed electronic and works with post-publication peer review. But it is not something, which we have today, it is something which can be realized in 20 years, in 30 years or never.
The debate around Open Science has the goal to prevent such a world. On the one hand, the phd-candidates are printing out their manuscripts and the publishers are doing the quality check before the manuscript gets published and on the same time, the public is told how wonderful the opposite would be. The best example is perhaps a printed journal, which is behind a paywall, which publishes lots of manuscript about future academic publication. That is a very safe way to debate the future, if it is not realized in reality.
Let us listen carefully to so called Open Access discussions. Are these talks about the current situation in academic publishing? No, Open Access and Open Science is mainly a requirement which the researcher have. That means, they hope that Open Science will become true and they are explaining why they need it. For example, if the paper is electronically the costs are lower. That requirements are not fulfilled yet. There is a need for new Open Access publishers which are not available right now. The funny thing is, that even publishers are argue in the same way. That means, Elsevier for example is explaining their requirements to Open Access publication. And the public, that means somebody else from Elsevier should fulfill such a demand.