We can talk about the concepts of love, friendship, good and evil endlessly! Life, fortunately, does not have unambiguous definitions, norms and rules... otherwise it would be boring to live. Someone does not believe in friendship, as well as in love. Someone loves already for tomorrow, and calls friends the one with whom only once sat in the company for a bottle of beer. Nowadays it is possible to address viewers through "friends". VK, which I hate, has a menu item "friends", and someone has several hundred units there.... sorry, I can't say otherwise.
The word is devalued, just like the other one, "love"... on the way out, it ceases to mean anything at all. A friend, an acquaintance, a comrade, a comrade-in-arms... What difference does it make? Can it all really be summed up in "friend"? Fortunately, not in my case. Maybe it's the notion of degrees of friendship. Then what's the hierarchy?
Ask a person about love who has never loved, you will get a very peculiar answer, which will probably be different from yours. So they ask me about friendship... have I ever been friends with anyone?
Friendship is a strong cable that has no length. Even time cannot break it. Friendship has no alternatives and no degrees of strength. That's what makes it beautiful and in some ways better than love. It is impossible to be stronger in friendship, although you have probably been able to "love more". Friendship is both more complicated and yet easier than the concept of "love", while being in a completely different universe. Appreciate true friendship!