>, bearing in mind that editors and peer reviewers aren't paid a dime by the publishers?
The peer reviewers may not be paid but the prestigious academic journals (Nature, Cardiology, etc) do have paid editorial staff. E.g. the initial rejections of papers and rounds of back-&-forth copy-editing with the author are handled by the paid editors and not the unpaid peer reviewers.
That's not to say there are also journals that are run by 100% unpaid volunteers but I'm unaware of any particular Elsevier journals with that labor structure.
(However, this is not an endorsement of Elsevier's high subscription fees.)
The peer reviewers may not be paid but the prestigious academic journals (Nature, Cardiology, etc) do have paid editorial staff. E.g. the initial rejections of papers and rounds of back-&-forth copy-editing with the author are handled by the paid editors and not the unpaid peer reviewers.
That's not to say there are also journals that are run by 100% unpaid volunteers but I'm unaware of any particular Elsevier journals with that labor structure.
(However, this is not an endorsement of Elsevier's high subscription fees.)