If a channel that makes clickbait garbage thumbnails pops up I just click to not have the channel recommended again, and that has worked pretty well.

Clickbait works and I encourage all YouTubers that I watch to do so. The more people they reach, the more money they earn and the better their content can become. Outside of a minor annoyance to the superusers, using clickbait titles and thumbnails is just good business. Even the very best content producers in their category (Veritasium in educational content, MKBHD for tech reviewing are great examples) use it because they have to: but lots of them dislike doing it. Veritasium has two great videos about it: clickbaiting is a HUGE benefit to any YouTube channel, a good thumbnail alone can account for 20-50% of all views on a video.

Imagine it like this: every time you pay for anything, you get a free 30% discount if you pinch yourself in the arm. Wouldn't you always just do it? Who cares about the minor annoyance.

That's what it's like for the content creator. Put 30 minutes of work into a clickbait thumbnail + title and it's 30% more views on every single video.