It will always be an uphill climb the further down on the hill you are. However, Academia doesn't need to keep making the hill taller.<p>The hardest part is those at the top have the most advantages. For example, ivy league institutes now pay for substantial editing before it makes it to the peer review stage. This increases the quality of the work, but other scholars at institutes without the same level of funding are now competing against a higher bar, reducing their total output. (If you can save 200 hours of work per paper, you can put another paper out.)<p>Money always imbalances the equation. This is yet another example. Unless institutions are willing to change the publication system, it will not get better, and it isn't in the interests in the institutions at the top to allow more competition.