I’m fine with the former, while the latter is manipulative, and I rationalize to “surely that’s not actually happening.”
Maybe I’m not giving my thoughts enough credit, though: maybe it’s not tin foil hat, and is real.
It charges by the unit and it decides how many units it produces. It decides how much money it makes, therefore it decides "more".
My point is that, while I understand it’s paid by the word, there are more words and less clarity than I previously experienced, leading me to believe it’s intentional to get an artificially inflated increase in engagement and, thus, spend.
If it could be as direct as I previously experienced, I wouldn’t need to ask for another different explanation of the same thing and experience the commensurate spend.
I don't think this is obvious at all. There's enough competition that this would at least arguably be a silly, self-destructive approach. And it's not like it's the only plausible explanation.