In many fields, preprints have been an established practice for a long time. That allows us to see the alternative to peer review. The main variables that predict how much attention your preprint gets are your name and the topic. With all its imperfections, peer review at least gives a second chance for less known researchers working on less fashionable topics.
That is not a good argument. It points out that research productivity has changed and then tries to correlate this with the rise of peer review, before admitting that the entire argument is confounded and pointless. Then it goes on to the standard non-practitioner approach and cherry-picks examples where peer review didn’t find flaws, which I mean, duh. Of course peer review doesn’t work perfectly to find all errors and fraud, nobody is arguing the point. You could write a similar post demonstrating that fire departments don’t fight fires, or that restaurant health codes aren’t needed to prevent food poisoning.
[0] https://www.experimental-history.com/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-...