Like any community, the SV startup community falls for clickbait, and given the upvotes here it certainly drove traffic both to the IH site and to the topic company's site.

Yup! You would be surprised to see how many do vote or even comment without reading an article.

That can be perfectly valid.

I always check comments before reading unless it's a topic or site I generally trust. I end up reading things I wouldn't have from title alone, and not bothering with a lot of others.

e.g. In arriving in this topic I clearly see I dislike the spam business model, the method, and have no reason at all to read the article.

Yet I just commented and upvoted you, and flagged the submission. :p