its easy talking for people who already have a rank tho, thats the thing why its kinda unfair to judge stone ranks their friend list (not to start about parties). what they're saying is you have to pay to play with friends, which feels quite unfair. a friend system helps seeing who is/isnt online and in what game, which makes it more likely for people to play together, and by that play longer.
god damnit here we go anyways, lets look at party system!
you can only join with 2 others in one party when you're stone rank, which makes it impossible to play most maps in team gamemodes since you get this one random guy in your team who ruins it, and makes people ragequit to the point they leave for a different server. joining the same lobby with 2 parties in TD is not too hard, but just think about games like skywars, and actually becoming the same team!