Article note: Platform tiktokification as a carcinization analog is a good observation.
It's clearly the result of Min-Maxing: maximize engagement (hence advertising dollars), minimize content spend by herding users.
The word for all this is ‘mature programming environment.’ Basically, when hardware performance has been pushed to its final limit, and programmers have had several centuries to code, you reach a point where there is far more significant code than can be rationalized. The best you can do is understand the overall layering, and know how to search for the oddball tool that may come in handy