Click bait is an unfortunate reality but I think it's possible to create decent titles that are not just misleading. Personally I think this OP might even be a bit too much, but milankragujevic's was plain confusing.

In this case, it's not click bait that is winning.

> Nokia phones sent identifiable data to Chinese server

isn't click bait, but simply much more clear and to the point than

> Ask HN: HMD Global (Nokia) is acting shady Any recourse?

I got most of my karma through «clickbait» stuff. If you manage to post something like the Apple annual report, you can get a million free points basically. You just gotta be quick.

Clear headlines that put the most salient information in the headline are not clickbait. The headline on this post is not clickbait.