> The reason why people continue to visit all those sites and click all those links?---Because they like it.
This is disingenuous; there are people who dedicate their working life to causing other people to do things they (other people) don't want to do (e.g., following a psychologically-designed bespoke(!) anchor that belongs to a class of things colloquially known as ``link bait". )
So half the planet is incapable of learning what clickbait is and only you can resist it?
Let's say everyone falls for it once, twice or even a dozen times. Don't you think the traffic would just stop after a while. Are we all so psychologically weak that we cant figure it out?
Why do celebrities have the most followers and gossip sites have some of the highest traffic? It's easy to argue that it's not "valuable" or "educational" content but it's still incredibly popular. Does that somehow make it "bad"? Are you the judge of that? Or is someone manipulating everyone to pay attention? Are a few people capable of controlling entire populations this easily? And why are they spending time with ads then?
OR - could it simply be that people just like what they like? At some point you just have to put aside the prejudices and look at the data and see that much of the popular stuff on the web is popular precisely because it's what users want.
Why do serial primetime comedies use laugh tracks? The writing is base and the jokes often not funny, but when we hear other people laugh we're psychologically driven to feel more joy/humor/whatever and join in.
Why do people keep clicking obvious linkbait articles? Because there's certain social-inclusion triggers we're wired to respond to, logic and conditioning be damned. The content isn't popular. The forcing function used to drive that traffic is playing on social addictions.
At some point you have to put aside the "data" and think about where the cause and effect really lies.
You never put aside the "data". That's how you make smart decisions.
You're talking about basing all this on some rough psychology - however plenty of people don't watch comedies with laugh tracks because they just don't like the show and it's the same with headlines.
There might be certain influences (since it is called clickbait) but in the end it's all up to the user. They choose to click.
> So half the planet is incapable of learning what clickbait is and only you can resist it?
Are you suggesting that this was my contention?!---I fall for click bait all the time.
> Are we all so psychologically weak that we cant figure it out?
No, but I don't think ``we" are actively trying to figure it out. People design these traps _for a living_; ``we" get trapped by them _in ``our" spare time_.
This entire post has plenty of objective arguments. What aspect would you like to discuss?
There's nothing wrong with subjective - unless you're actively trying to say you know what's right for everyone else. That's not how we make progress in the best interests of everyone.
The reason why people continue to visit all those sites and click all those links? - Because they like it.