I agree with you, in fact I support the idea of earning through Medium.

However, I recently cancelled my Medium membership and just shared an article with its reason. You can check it out. :) I would love to know your views.

Since then, I am relying on the Friend Links only, and apart from it, like this article, I am unable to read the paywalled articles.

However, one should do what works more for them.

As far as I know, Friend Link has one benefit, that if non-members would read, it would increase the reads and views, which would promote an article more on the platform. It just wouldn't make any money.