Yeah, I think a lot of people on Hackernews fall into the "advertising never worked on me" or "I'm too smart for propaganda" camp.

Clickbait is not just big red arrows and "OMG" in the title. It certainly can be, for some demographics. For other demographics, clickbait can be a video titled "The Theorem That Changed Math Forever" and a blurred out formula in the thumbnail.

If you ever saw a video and just instantly had the urge of, "I have to see this", you successfully got clickbaited. If you dislike constant sound effects and transitions and just want to see someone speak - a lot of adult audiences feel the same way, which is why many big channels deliberately produce content in that way. It's still a similarly skilled editor who probably could make overproduced content if they wanted to - they're just making the choice to make the video more relaxed.