The idea that in scientific publication, more is better, makes little sense to me as a practicing scientist. The scientific literature is already filled with papers with conclusions that are not well supported by the data, and that is after 50-80% of submissions are rejected.
To argue that publication should have fewer restrictions, one needs to show that the modest number of papers that are improperly rejected by every journal (not just the first submission) equals or outnumbers the overwhelming number of submissions that should not be published because they reflect a misunderstanding of their field or a misinterpretation of the data. For many (most) scientists, the problem is not that important results are unpublished, the problem is that it is almost impossible to keep up with the current gated literature, particularly when that literature is full of mistakes. While it is certainly true that some reviewers are biased and some ill-informed, most of the time papers are rejected because the authors did not communicate well (for papers that should be published) or because the authors did not understand that their data did not support their conclusion (papers that should be rejected).
The scientific literature needs a better signal to noise ratio, not more noise.
The rejection of a submission does cancel a work, it merely shifts elsewhere. The question is whether peer review gives the right incentives; many suspect that publication venues with an ostensibly stricter peer review actually encourage the production of more noise, not less. See https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2013.0029...
To argue that publication should have fewer restrictions, one needs to show that the modest number of papers that are improperly rejected by every journal (not just the first submission) equals or outnumbers the overwhelming number of submissions that should not be published because they reflect a misunderstanding of their field or a misinterpretation of the data. For many (most) scientists, the problem is not that important results are unpublished, the problem is that it is almost impossible to keep up with the current gated literature, particularly when that literature is full of mistakes. While it is certainly true that some reviewers are biased and some ill-informed, most of the time papers are rejected because the authors did not communicate well (for papers that should be published) or because the authors did not understand that their data did not support their conclusion (papers that should be rejected).
The scientific literature needs a better signal to noise ratio, not more noise.