BS, the reason we have sensational opinion pieces goes back before the internet. People are bored with mundane lives and love drama. Drama sells, 90s newsrooms found this out and cable news out competed established real journalism. The rest is a race to the bottom.

The internet simply exacerbated this as anyone could publish news on an equal platform to the big boys. Then we get paid-per-click, and that drives click-bait.

Stealing information absolutely is not responsible for that. People pay for junk, and that's the reason. We don't eat junk food because it's given away.