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I'm not a fan of it, but if I'm remembering correctly, only up to about 2% of views come from the subscriptions page.
This means a channel has to attract a lot of folks from other areas, and this requires somehow grabbing people. YouTube has tools for A/B testing thumbnails and titles. Channels that have tried clickbait vs normal thumbnails have found normal just doesn't generate clicks.
So unless YouTube revenue makes up a small enough percent of a channel's income, the channel is basically forced into using it. Even if they find it just as distasteful as we do.
Source: I think this is something Tom Scott went into at some point. The information is likely a few years out of date, but I wouldn't expect that it's changed radically.
I'm honestly more baffled and annoyed at how low usage of subscriptions is, than I am at clickbait. It makes it seem like this problem stems more from an audience desire to be spoonfed by an inscrutable algorithm than from anything to do with clickbait itself, or choices freely made by channels.