I have a different theory. I’ve noticed such (and similar) ads appearing a lot on some news sites. I think these sites use sexy ads to drive future traffic. In

I have a different theory. I’ve noticed such (and similar) ads appearing a lot on some news sites. I think these sites use sexy ads to drive future traffic. In other words, these ads lead to higher future retention by subliminally pulling users back for more content. Perhaps they help to amplify and complete a dopamine loop that occurs from reading bleak content such as war and COVID, or low-stimulating content such a recipes, or making us stomach emotionally-charged political arguments. They make us come back for more. It should be easy to do. You look at your user retention in control vs test groups that don’t show and show these ads, and track retention. At the (small?) price of a worse conversion rate, you retain your users better with such ads. If someone has a nice psychology source that could corroborate this, I would be thrilled.