While completing raids and nightfalls isn't always easy, and can be seen as earning the rewards, completing weekly heroics (which, sometimes, are just as difficult) to collect strange coins with which you purchase the exotics is earning too. Just because your ego is too big to warrant the thought of RNG dictating your loot, it doesn't mean others cannot get an exotic while they have the chance. On the point of earning, my friend got a MIDA from the Nightfall, and I got it from the Crucible. Completely different ends of the scale in term of effort.