There's a reason the most popular media is video and images and the main social media platforms are practically platforms for sharing video and images.
The average person all over all the world is almost functionally illiterate (literacy level of a middle schooler or maybe high schooler, at best). They really, really don't want text. They'll only read as much as they have to, and they will definitely choose images over text if they can.
At the end of the day if you see another blob of text, you either skim through it looking for what matters or you just delete/archive it.
They could even hate it, but it just stands out for better and worst.
Oh yeah, they do like it and want it. That is why they use it. And yes, I talked with a guy who was literally like "I like the emails colorful and such, but we found through testing developers respond better to plain, so I send plain to them".
Sometimes we are the odd ones and that is ok.
Do they? Do they really like it? Did anyone actually asked? And no, A/B testing your design's capability to trick the user into paying you money isn't measuring whether they like it or not.
I have an alternative proposal: average user just accepts what they're given, because they have no other choice. Nobody listens to their opinion (again, tracking and telemetry is not the same as listening to people). Abusive designs and patterns are adopted industry-wide very quickly, so there's rarely an opportunity for the user to vote with their wallet - after all, they can't choose something that's not available in the first place. On top of that, the average user lacks the mental models and language to conceptualize what is wrong and how much better technology could be if it was slightly less abusive. All they can do is accept that computers are annoying, and casually complain about this to friends and family.