You seem to be saying that it's okay to put up a metered paywall as long as the articles are good. You are missing the point then. Substack is going to eat you alive. But I guess you got a good salary! Enjoy it while it lasts.
Not only do I dislike that enough to not want to use Medium or Substack as a reader, but it also means that I would never want to use Medium or Substack as a writer, either; yeah, I have all of three blog posts to my name, but even my shitty writing deserves better than to have any association whatsoever with such user-hostility.