He makes a fool of himself for money. No one is disputing that. You seem to be painting that as a bad thing.
He's said that he hates it just as much, but it's so effective that not doing it is just bad business.
Nah. The voting system is a great way to filter out bullshit, spam, etc. It doesn't always work, but the wisdom of the crowd is real.
Maybe it wasn't intentional at first, but once they saw the effect and realized why it was happening, they definitely cranked it up to 11.
The CEOs maybe, but they then hire people who know all this psychology and absolutely know how to accomplish this.
At this point, it's certainly more about appearances than actual statecraft.