Seems we don't really have a good understanding of what goes wrong with paywalled links.
For me, as an author, I find myself in a ridiculous situation when I want to share with friends works I've done for a site that uses paywalls but doesn't pay me (yes this happens in the real world of publishing). So I am ambivalent and often share a link along with instructions on how to bypass access controls.
But more generally I am irritated by links other people share, such as here on HN, that are paywalled. I'd rather not know about them than experience the frustration and time-waste of following them.
So there is a contradiction/tension at the heart of digital publishing, that creators, critics, researchers and commenters really want exposure/reach more than they want (or get) money.
That said, paywalls are not the only problem and are more understandable than sites that block Tor, use Cloudflare, Geo-block, or those brain-dead ISPs or university sysadmins who block sites based on broad keywords so that almost any kind of research is impossible without tunnelling out past their crappy firewalls.
If they don't like it, it's trivial to put their content behind a requirement to log in with a validated account. In fact, it's even easier than what they do now!
Oh, but wait, that won't play with the SEO, user engagement, social media sharing, dark patterns to entice users to pay by offering them a few crumbs now and then... Again, not my problem. They do them, I'll do me.