I saw either yours or a similar comment somewhere else on this topic, so I tried it again. It worked on mobile and desktop. Maybe there's something else going on for you like a browser extension that anonymizes your clicks through SERPs? (If there is such a thing) Maybe one that deletes your Referer: header.

In the past it worked best for me when I Googled the article title using Chrome in incognito mode (in case of cookies). For some reason it's never worked for me in Firefox. Most of the time it's not worth the hassle, so I don't jump through hoops anymore to read paywalled articles.