Let me count some ways that Academia Edu has declined in its zeal to monetize. The latest is that no URLs in articles that I've seen are active links anymore!
Before, non-members could scroll down to read articles, but now they have to provide personal info.
As a free member I'm usually hit with a pop-up on arrival. They flatter users by citing a large but false number of mentions to get them to become paying members. One Indian professor was boasting on FB thousands of citations, but I found only 27 for him on Google Scholar. When I pointed that out, he blocked me.
There were Academia Letters and then journals, first free and then pay to publish (like $2,000).
Academia Edu can amplify our works if they want, with nearly 300 million users signed up. That's the attraction to us, but their temptation to exploit. Comments?
After many criticisms of Academia Edu, I didn't have space to discuss alternative research repositories like ResearchGate, or open access repositories like Knowledge Commons (which also maintains a sizeable Mastodon instance) -- details under: https://hcommons.social/@SteveMcCarty/112635424860940626
ResearchGate purports to be more exclusive but still allows non-members to scroll down to read in-text articles. However, they might also be tempted toward #enshittification (in Cory Doctorow's colorful parlance). To an extent we have to hold our nose ;-) to gain the network effects of Academia Edu and ResearchGate, but if they become too unethical or difficult to reach readers, we can move our works and links to an open access repository like Knowledge Commons. Most members use it additionally for blogging, but I recommend it as a free Website host as well, such as my central Website on Japan, online education, bilingualism, and the academic life: https://japanned.hcommons.org