External views don't usually count toward the MPP payments, since only reading time from paying members goes toward earnings calculations. However, I think that paying members that are counted as "external viewers" (having clicked on the article from an email, or social media, or a google search) still count toward read time and earnings. Medium's metrics can be a bit confusing, but for example if I share an article on facebook and a paying member reads it, their view should count as both external and for revenue-generating read time.