It depends on the platform. Most of the platforms reward content engagement, no matter if the content is positive or negative.

Engagement means money. Even if this is bait content then you get rewarded (on TikTok, X, YouTube, you directly get cash).

Even here controversy is indirectly rewarded here because it creates engagement, and there is practically no downsides if you upset anyone;

You get points for every answer that someone does to your comment, and the downvotes you get on your own comments don't offset the gained points.

These points have real utility to make money indirectly: the more points you have, the more credibility you have on this platform and capacity to push a story.

[...]

and it helps to bootstrap your project or grab new customers for free (at most 1 day of writing the bot script).

Let's say, you want to launch a new Juicero, and nobody knows about it yet, it's great to be able to push it on the homepage of HN, otherwise nobody is going to notice.