There were books using this differently where it would skip to the end to get a paycheck out of it. Thats probably why. Not cause of a CYOA. I think it was posted about here on HN. This is an interesting comment though. I hadnt thought of ever seeing a CYOA book in digital form but I guess it makes total sense.

Here's a prior discussion on another technique that's somewhat related called "stuffing":

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17315249

I swear there was some weird one where you opened a book, and skipped to the end and it counted as reading 300 pages.

Another discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11520212