If they activated the paywall for Googlebot, they'd get no visitors from Google searches.
If they deactivated the paywall for Googlebot, but activated it for visitors, they'd get banned from Google for expertsexchange behavior.
They must figure that random Google visitors are worth more than the people who are clever enough to Google the article titles they want to read to work past the paywall.
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I've never understood how WSJ operate their paywall. They seem to allow it to be bypassed on any article by simply using Google as a referrer.
For any given paywalled article, if you Google the article headline and click on the WSJ link in the results, the full article is displayed.
If they activated the paywall for Googlebot, they'd get no visitors from Google searches.
If they deactivated the paywall for Googlebot, but activated it for visitors, they'd get banned from Google for expertsexchange behavior.
They must figure that random Google visitors are worth more than the people who are clever enough to Google the article titles they want to read to work past the paywall.