The journal does the reviewing. The author(s) submit the paper and journal editor(s) are the responsible for the review. Generally, the reviews are anonymous. The editor knows but not the authors. Plus, you have to generally pay for publication.

Before you submit a manuscript one generally sends it out to friends and colleagues (maybe even supervisors) for their comments.

Are you seeing the "same names" as authors? One of the reasons for that is that publication is difficult, time consuming, and more effort than many in the field are willing to invest. If you are an academic (professor) there is a system in place to reward publication. If not, the rewards may be only personal as the job/work makes no recognition.

Peer-reviewed publication is the foundation of science and goes back centuries.