Gambling has been around forever. Hyper aggressive slot machines do nothing to dissuade addicts, and dark patterns on the web are the same. They are trying to build addiction, and addiction doesn't care that something hurts to do, you need it.

The few of us who go "ew" and recoil are vastly outnumbered by the billions who just watch.

Every complaint about ads on youtube is someone who can't even be bothered to download an adblocker before Chrome killed it. It was one click, but that didn't dissuade the vast majority of eyeballs.