Yes, again, similar to how a Tobacco consumer would reject older styles of Cigarettes. They were objectively worse - less nicotine, less impact on the brain, slower burning, and uneven burning. I used to smoke, ask me how I know.
> conspiracy of consumer stupidity
You misunderstand. Consumers aren't stupid, they're human. Human are remarkably easy to exploit. Exploiting the human mind is orders of magnitude easier than exploiting a computer.
I mean, you put a shiny machine in front of a human and tell them there's little to no chance they'll win money and they'll destroy themselves in front of it. Drain their bank accounts, ruin their marriage. You don't even have to lie - you can tell them gambling is bad, you can tell them they won't win, but that doesn't actually affect the exploit. Monkey brain see bright light, dopamine hits.
It's really quiet simple, and you're a market-minded man so you should be able to deduce this: it's all about incentives. You can continue to believe that the devices best for advertisers also happen to be what consumers want most. I think it's painfully naive, almost child-like.
I mean, look at smart TVs. Why do we have those? Do consumers prefer them? Sure. Is it to everyone's benefit that consumers prefer it? Certainly. So then we must ask - how did consumers come to prefer them? Was it, maybe, forced? Were they, maybe, exploited?
Just consider this. If I want to enter the Tobacco market, anywhere in the world, should I enter with a nicotine-free cigarette, or even a low-nicotine cigarette? Would those be successful? No, I think, the company would sink remarkably fast. We'd have no sales, consumers wouldn't buy it.