Considering that pretty much every huge service goes into the direction of less control over time (Amazon, Netflix are other examples), I assume that for other people this has to somehow be great and actually increase their engagement. For me (and I assume many others on HN) it simply makes the experience worse and recommendations less relevant.

do you engage with YouTube ads? because otherwise your not the target audience, you're a cost center.

their optimization makes more sense when you consider what metrics generates them money.

the one which I only partially understand is Netflix, but I think it's because of the show pricing hidden variable.

Being great and increasing engagement are not necessarily correlated.

It is for me and, (again, my assumption) probably for most of HN. When I don't like stuff I'm just annoyed by it taking up space and if I somehow end up watching it, it's only for the few seconds it takes me to close it.