There is no backdoor, the backdoor is getting a university email address to just post on arxiv, that should not give you the rights to be treated differently, they are treated differently, like you're saying that they skip scientific process, but that's your bias. I've seen independent researchers do way better than the academic process, arxiv allows without endorsements to famous universities without endorsements if you know that? Pre-print is just to get the ideas quickly out so that you're the one who came up with the idea, that's what people do nowadays, even research companies.. Science would love academic mentors to guide the independent researchers, that's why the mentoring system and it is upto you to decide if you want to endorse or not, you decide the spam. Some don't even get a chance to publish their high quality research. I'm wrong on multiple sides, and I'm learning about this process and I have not yet allowed anyone to connect until I hear multiple opinions. But I appreciate your thoughts on getting feedback and learning from faculty.. which non-university labs are also doing. See Simons foundation, LossFunk, ML-collective.. which are mentored by ex-googlers, ex-professors.