The headline was clearly written to get people to say, "Hmm, a great trap? And it affects all Americans? I wonder what this trap is. Some kind of alligator, maybe? My brain will not allow me to get any work done until I find out the nature of said trap."

Agreed. This is definitely not a clickbait title. An article title doesn't have to recap the entire contents; it should be a hook to get the reader interested. Clickbait is something more than that.

To be honest, most people on HN/reddit focus wayyyy too much on titles these days, so much so that the only comments in this thread so far are about whether it is clickbait. Yes clickbait is a problem, but I also think we should make exceptions of the sort for known reputable sites. If every website was forced to use a dry and descriptive title, I'm not sure the reader would be better off. (I always found old-style titles to be peculiar: "A, or a B on C in the D of E for a F of G") I think it's only fair to make accusations of clickbait after reading the article and concluding that the substance doesn't match. "5 best horror movies of all time" tells you exactly what you're going to get, while maybe "you won't expect what happens next!" might not. I understand that titles might not give you all the information necessary for a persn to decide if they should click a link, but the comments help to give some of that context. (though they also lead to people commenting without reading based off other's conclusions, and a hivemind mentality)