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You dispense with "they provide a benefit" and instead land on "we're not great at being malicious yet". Literally the top post from this comments section is s

• troyvit 7y ago
  Eh not quite. I said they must provide a benefit, otherwise people wouldn't click on the stuff. You said, "No they're being manipulated into clicking on the stuff." I responded with "Outbrain is not nearly as good at manipulating people as social networks." To me that means there are other reasons people are clicking on the stuff and yeah I like to believe it's because they get some benefit from it (even if it's the same benefit they get from watching trashy tv or reading pulp fiction). I don't like to believe that because I think ads are awesome, I like to believe that because it feeds my belief that people do much of what they do out of free will. If we're puppets of corporations we're willing puppets of corporations and blaming ad networks won't change us.