You and I might consider Demand Media-style content to be shit, but there's a market for it. We might want big, meaty content written with clever words and insightful conclusions, but the mass of the market wants little snackable boneless pieces that they don't have to work too hard to digest.
Demand Media understand this. They understand that the Internet is now predominantly used by people who read at an eighth-grade level, who don't know how to use browser tabs or ctrl-f, who will go straight for the back button if presented with big blocks of text. Demand Media seek to produce huge amounts of content that is just good enough to be the most relevant content for any given long-tail search term. They do that better than anyone.
Google aren't fools, they aren't being gamed, Demand Media are just creating content that is the most relevant content for very specific search terms. It's not of great quality, but it's the best that's available. If you know how to form a search query then you can find better content most of the time, but most people have neither the ability nor the inclination. Cheap, convenient, omnipresent. It's the stuff empires are made of.
Like 99.99% of products in the world, it's not bad, it's just not for you. If you are strongly opposed to what other people consume, you have three proper grown-up options. Either take it up with them, satisfy that demand better, or ignore it. Railing against the people who fulfil that demand is going to get you nowhere.