I did that, and then afterwords it told me that the article was being gifted to me buy a paying member. After that I just closed the tab. It is kind of a stroke of genius, encouraging me to sign up by showing me that I'm enjoying the largesse of a paying customer. On the other hand, if letting me read the article is such a huge imposition, I guess I don't want it.

The paying member is the first author.

im not here to engage in the debate about how much we hate online subscriptions. I'm just commenting on garbage UI trying to trick you to subscribe and pay for an article that isn't really paywalled