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Ask HN: Why are clickbait titles bad?
A lot of times when I'm reading HN I notice there are a lot of people complaining about articles having clickbait titles. I have always been under the assumption that that was the entire purpose of a title which is to grab the readers attention and get them to read the article or in other words, in the context of the internet, be a bait for clicks. While it's not an excuse to have a misleading title, some articles are less technical and meant for a more general consumption so are they expected to have a title similar to that of one more serious and technical? Even if the article is crap and the title is misleading it will either be filtered out of the front page or could even possibly insight a really good discussion. So instead of complaining about weather a title is clickbait, maybe it would be better to just explain what is wrong about the article instead to help prevent any misinformation or just ignore it and let it sink?