I, too, dislike clickbait.

I wonder, however, why, as your story implies, you have continued to respond to it, again and again. In my experience, it is relatively easy to recognise the likelihood of a story being clickbait.

Not only are titles a give away in themselves but often the subject matter to which they refer is another not particularly subtle indicator.

It is also useful, when suspecting or finding clickbait, to check the other offerings of its author. If one finds such titles or themes to be common then, usually, it is a fair bet that the majority, if not all, of their output will be clickbait and/or of poor quality and usually repetitious, at that.

Sadly, as is the case with virtually any activity today, a large proportion of those engaged will be motivate by making money rather than by a genuine desire to hone their skills and make a continued and improving contribution in the area they have chosen.

Medium is no less prone to such 'contributions', (perhaps 'misuse' or 'abuse' are better terms), than other formats, mediums and such.

Clickbait has been abundant since long before the recent glut of relatively cheap AI services became available. In many cases, I'd suggest that, ironically, AI is often more likely to produce something of worth and with less grammatical, punctuation and terminology misuse.

Overall, however, I think it of little use to call out clickbait in the clickbait way that you have. The reality is that we live in a clickbait society and have for a long time - it simply has gone and goes under a different name, i.e. advertising copy / slogans / political one-liners / book titles / reality tv names / news headlines ... and etc.

If this is to be removed. or at least limited on Medium then my view is that the only effective way is for increased and effective moderation. Of course, legitimately and for many, such a change would constitute as bad or even worse a situation as the amount of clickbait.

I oppose censorship of any sort, even the recent populist pressure, (in some cases followed through), on governments to ban Nazi artefacts or memorabilia.

Most of us, perhaps even all of us, are capable of making choices. I don't like to have a platform cluttered with poorly written material, absurdly argued and unevidenced opinion, or prurient trivia that can only appeal to those with emotional immaturity or a perverted mindset. It is a nuisance and obscures the important, skilled or nuanced writing of the real contributors to this platform. It is a reason why, although an early adopter of social media, having over 2000 followers on Twitter and over 6000 on LinkedIn, for example, I have now left Instagram, Twitter/X, Pinterest, Facebook, LinkedIn, Quora and many others.

In some cases it has proved difficult or, at least, inconvenient because too many charities, institutions, media outlets and businesses seem to use Facebook as their main, (and often only) significant platform other than, perhaps X.

The reason for that is similar to the reason for clickbait. Our society inculcates, (conditions, if you will), an ethos of success in life that is evidenced by status, fame, wealth and power. We live in a materialist society where morality and ethical codes of acceptable conduct are flouted by all and sundry, not least the very people who ought to be modelling the best examples of those two guides to caring, sharing, giving, accepting and contributing.

What then can we do? I don't, of course, have any specific answer. I don't pretend to be 'the wise one'. The best I can suggest right now is for us to focus on being the best we can be at what we do and using the skills and insight we have to produce material that shows understanding, rather than blame or abuse, for the wrongs we perceive to exist and which offers rational, clear and well metaphored examples of what we suggest might produce a more compassionate and equitable society for all.

We don't have to wallow in the clickbait, we can ignore it. If enough of us do so, it will lose its effectiveness for with no audience it has failed and has no purpose.

Take care. Stay safe. ☮️