TR – I absolutely agree with you. There should be no publishing in predatory journals period. There should be no plagiarism period. There should be scientifically valid methodology period.
The assumption that all publishers that appear predatory from the outside are, in fact, publishing only with that motivation is questioned. Sir, you are mistaken that best practices are “easily observable and learned.” When a population has no tradition of this type of knowledge and virtually no instructors who have such a tradition, it is not easy. It will take time and support.
The problem here is that “predatory,” “easy,” and “pressure” are all relative terms. My only contention is that the depth and breadth of the problems faced by academics on this side of the planet is not fully understood by the academics on that side of the planet and their methods for attempting to address those problems cannot be judged, or changed, quite so simply.
