> piracy as a threat to their revenue streams, hence "competition"

By your logic, I can "compete" with GM by stealing all of their car inventory and blowing up all their factories in Detroit. I don't think that makes sense.

> the market has simply changed

Strongly disagree. What exactly is the new market? Selling journal t-shirts?

> yet the peer review process relies on unpaid volunteers

> Publication bias is a thing

I say that publishers add much more value than pirates. Sure, publishers aren't perfect and others add value too. So what?