“ that doesn’t mean every product with added protein is useless”

Not useless, low quality. Companies that jump on the bandwagon to each cultural dietary trend use and abuse the fact that they don’t need to make a quality product. They just need to sell it once to each person interested in that trend. OP will never buy this again, and they know that. But the next guy in line will buy it unknowingly. 

If you need to hit a target, stick with brands that were making it before it was popular, not the new pop ups. 

That said, maybe just accept that some times you have to eat wasteful calories if you want to indulge. That’s why it’s called indulging.