I guess the hypothesis is that they engage in that behavior exactly because their business depends on driving up engagement so they’ll go as far as to, as you s

I guess the hypothesis is that they engage in that behavior exactly because their business depends on driving up engagement so they’ll go as far as to, as you say, show people content that pisses them off so they’ll spend an extra hour as a keyboard warrior and hopefully see an ad in there. I don’t think those incentives exist for e.g a paid phonebook.