The Friend Link Is significance for those who post their content on social media sites like X/Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. That’s because many people on these platforms are not familiar with Medium and are not Medium members. Therefore, those non-Medium folks are much more likely to engage with your article if there is no pay wall or other technical obstacles blocking them from reading the full content (note: I believe non-members get three free reads per month of entire articles before the wall kicks in—assuming that has not changed since I last checked).