It's a form of digital art meant to highlight the absurdity of the modern internet. Being overwhelmed by all of the forms of multimedia stimulation to finally escape to the ocean and appreciating simplicity is the point
It falls under the category of "incremental games" that are generally simple but addicting due to the dopamine release from watching those numbers go up
The genre exists in a weird place. Progress Quest is maybe the start, and then you get Cow Clicker, which was definitely a parody but took off because everyone thought it was funny, and then Wikipedia tells me AdVenture Capitalist started as a parody but then became a popular and profitable game. And that's kind of the problem with the genre: it's kind of artistically meant as a parody or a joke, but people keep liking them and wanting more, and now it's a real genre, and a few of the games (like Paperclips) have a lot of artistic value far beyond the initial "haha it's not much of a game" joke.
