> Data says otherwise - plenty of e-commerce sites taking you to search, with the thing you saw just pinned at the top. I hate the pattern but it seems to result in higher engagement.

That's extremely different than the thing described here: "take you to a category page with something else entirely pinned at the top."

Folks are slowly noticing that this concept of "engagement" is a shallow, toxic one that encourages poor behavior that generally harms the end user.

[citation needed]

Maybe tech-savvy folks, or people otherwise paying close attention, but I don't think this describes the vast majority of people by any stretch.

I think the discussion around Facebook and Russia opened a lot of eyes to how ads-based businesses can be exploited, and how the infrastructure they built directly lends to this phenomenon.

And yet, people still continue to use Facebook/Google/etc en masse. These companies are in the news what seems like every week, but the number of people who have left those platforms is negligible.

Because we are not all using the same brain. Many people have many opinions, and some people even sometimes act counter to their preferences based on the context! Wild stuff.

Your original comment implies that folks "slowly noticing" dark patterns is going to make some sort of difference in the grand scheme of things. I am arguing, based on my experience with humans, that it will not—and even if it could, that not enough people are paying attention for it to matter.