I understand the reasoning you use, that it's just following rote and doing as Medium "advise" but it's more for their benefit than yours. Being creative, you've worked out a better solution for you. I used to put friends link at top of all my story but removed it now. I only give friend link to someone I may know if I want to share a specific story. I found my read ratio has increased since. A while ago I got lots of extra views on a story and thought it was great, until I realised half were from friend links and I didn't earn from them, and they don't support Medium writers. Thanks for sharing this article. To succeed one needs to be creative and think outside of the box.