News sites don't view people as "users" but as "pageviews". Clickbait and SEO drives pageviews, and you monetize pageviews by getting the highest payment per impression.

This obv comes at a long term branding cost - but only large brands like New York Times can really afford to care about the long term. Most news sites are commoditized and barely surviving these days =/

I don't agree with the practice, but I also kind of understand why it's there.