Apparently adding this hoop is filtering for a lot more readers who are willing to pay, though. You're probably not willing to pay. I'm not either. From a financial point of view, both of our opinions on the Medium paywall are worth absolutely nothing.

There are other ways to make money on the internet, personally I like the "post shit everywhere for free, have a Patreon" model, which is giving me similar numbers of around $1k/mo for not much energy put into promotion, with a little bit more every month as my patrons grow. But some people like putting up paywalls, and it's their choice to do that with whatever they're creating.