Many people, myself included, would prefer paywalled content didn’t get submitted to HN at all.

The quality of paywalled articles is low compared to the other articles submitted and the discussions that follow are significantly worse on average.

Understood, and some sympathies. Take it up with dang, or submit an Ask HN piece.

That said: you have the option of flagging such submissions, provided you're over the fairly modest karma limit, which it appears you are.