system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why do wealthy websites, like Yahoo, MSN, etc., need those crappy clickbait "Sponsered Ads" all over their website? Do they really need the revenue from these?

I see ads like these all the time:

"Man finds a secret entrance in his home, what he discovers changes his life forever"

"You will NOT believe what these celebrities have been doing lately!"

Etc.

I'm assuming the only reason the wealthy websites have pages like this on their website, is for the revenue from advertisements. How much money would they even get? Can't imagine why a multi-million dollar company would diminish the credibility of its website, just for the small amount of revenue stream from these clickbait ads.
gpt
Yes, they do.

Yahoo still has a bunch of infrastructure: servers, cable, processing capacity, that sort of thing. They rent most of that out to other companies at this point, but other than that they don't have much in the way of income or market share. Google absolutely crushed them in the search engine and ad revenue department, and there is no way they will ever recover from that due to sheer weight of brand recognition. As a result, any scrap of revenue they can get from their website is still important to them.

People do still use Yahoo, mostly the more computer-illiterate types. Those are also the kinds of people most likely to click on clickbait. The demographics go with their strategy.