I think it depends on why they're doing it. Like, in One Direction fandom, there is a really awful trend of girls tweeting links to other people's fics to the boys, so a lot of 1D authors lock their fic, but allow anyone to read them as long as they ask. I've heard this happens with Supernatural fandom too. If it's just to get more readers, though, then it's really stupid, but it usually pretty easy to tell who is doing it for follows and who's doing it to preserve the fourth wall.