That's an incredibly naive perspective on media to take.

If national news stations get high ratings does that mean people necessarily like the people generating or publishing the content? Is it impossible for a medium to generate interest and attention while actively attempting to exploit or manipulate its viewers?

Most users do not notice the poster at all when upvoting a thread. Notice the top level thread [0] here talking about Reddit Enhancement Suite and the epiphany that comes with monitoring which accounts one is passively upvoting.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=23258721&goto=item%3Fi...