Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was a proper referendum, not very comparable to easily game-able internet poll.
Not easy to game at all aye https://i.imgsir.com/RZKw.png I get what you're saying but this poll is to say "Please look at this further" not "Please instantly do this thing in the poll"
Even if Brexit doesn't destroy the UK economy[1], politicians everywhere in Europe (including the UK) would no longer be able to speak entirely in hypotheticals, which otherwise make it easy to string along the electorate as well as keep the electorate fickle. Brexit will finally realize the counterfactual that previously anybody and everybody could fabricate from whole cloth. Indeed, it'll also provide a much needed counterfactual in American political discourse and possibly elsewhere.
OTOH, I really like the suggestion in a comment to one of CGP Grey's Brexit videos: the UK and EU could simply ceremoniously reenact the Article 50 withdrawal notice and extension request every year on a new EU-wide holiday, Brexit Day. It provides substantially the same political catharsis, but in perpetuity. And it's perfectly consonant with English political culture more generally--anachronisms that not only bridge time but reconcile conservative and liberal political modalities.
Note: It's important that, at least theoretically, the ritual reenactment preserves the real threat of Brexit. Like with a roller coaster, the appetite for self-destruction cannot be sated without uncertainty.
[1] I mean, pro-Brexit activists were always dishonest and full of sh*t. Here's a mea culpa where an activist admits as much, even while continuing to lie to himself: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/why-brexiteers-forgot-abo... But, honestly, who knows what will happen post Brexit. Short term dislocation for sure, but beyond that it's a fool's game to make hard predictions.