Clickbait 101

Like most people, I'm sure, I much dislike "clickbait" headlines. Raw Story, a news website I particularly like, is a big exponent of such things, its only flaw. But I was surprised to see the excellent tech site, CNET jump in.

Yesterday, I got the daily CNET newsletter I subscribe to. It always includes links to a number of stories, with the main story being the email's subject line. And this one a subject line headline that shouted out -- "The death of cash may finally be coming." I doubted that, but still I was curious what they had to say about the technology. And also what the other stories they were covering that day.

Fortunately, I didn't have to click through the clickbait link to the actual article, because the newsletter had a sub-heading underneath those glaring words, "The death of cash may finally be coming."

The sub-headline was --

"E-commerce and mobile money may in the coming years take a bite out of cash's strength in the payments world. But it won't be easy."

Color me contrarian, but to me -- "may take a bite out of..." and "It won't be easy" seems to mean that, no, the death of cash may finally be coming.