It does not promote freedom as much as gpl.

You can always publish your code under gpl now and add a note that you are open to relicense your work. You can then later add the L to gpl or switch to MIT if you want to.

You can not switch from MIT to GPL.

My first packages were gpl. Then I got to know MIT and thought, wow, that is real freedom! Following that, I published my code under MIT until someone told me that gpl promotes freedom. If a project uses MIT, i may contribute but I won't be the main author.

MIT is much better than proprietary. sometimes MIT is much more favorable than gpl. E.g. If you are a company and want to collaborate with others, you release your base code under MIT and anyone can just not release their additional contribution but everyone contributes to the base code.