Yes, authors of articles rarely get to choose the headline, at most, they can suggest one. The editors choose the headline and often their motivation is to maximize clicks.
Ars Technica in particular sometimes uses A/B testing, randomly giving readers one of two headlines to see which one generates more clickthroughs (they've been transparent about that, there was an article describing it).
omnicognate|3 years ago
not2b|3 years ago
Ars Technica in particular sometimes uses A/B testing, randomly giving readers one of two headlines to see which one generates more clickthroughs (they've been transparent about that, there was an article describing it).