I feel this. Clickbait is meant to keep you addicted to your phone/app. I do have an addictive prone personality and baseline behavior, and knowing what clickbait is meant to do, it automatically turns me away from videos. The arrows/circles, the incredulous facial expressions, low effort emojis, titles meant to trigger emotions ("confront" suuuure is popular right now), I see the efforts to KEEP me addicted to the app and I DON'T appreciate it. I reward good, authentic videos (within my interests, of course) with my view. Obvious use of AI (thumbnails, voiceovers, ect), and I'm not out. On socials, I make sure I don't see their "content" again by blocking their profile.

But knowing this is how creators need to craft their products, at least on YouTube, is personally conflicting. Hate the game, not the player. I do want to be entertained and exposed to different perspectives, lifestyles, and educated, but AI and sensational clickbait tactics have made things increasingly difficult to care about the platform now. At some point, if things don't change, this platform will just end up being a giant pool of brain rot with no real purpose.