If basic webpages 'sold', then marketers would use them. Webpages that 'wow' work, that's why people use them. It's not based on gut feelings either - there's lots of research in the area, for example A/B testing.
People say they don't want shitty news either, but the news that is most popular is pretty low quality, sensationalist tripe.
Your missing my point: If your goal for a webpage is to sell, then glwt. I get that they are a thing, but they are pretty useless to me, and good luck making marketing material that excludes people that want to give you money.
Webpages to me are tools, not marketing material. If you want to use them for marketing, then great! Just don't waste my time trying to turn a tool into marketing material.
Webpages that are meant to be useful (like Debian makes, etc) should be accessible, not promotional. The webpages I use are tools to get a job done, not to browse for advertisements.
> and good luck making marketing material that excludes people that want to give you money.
You're completely missing my point. Web pages are the way they are because they pull eyeballs. You are a single data point. You don't like slick webpages? Fine, you're an outlier. There are people out there that don't go online at all. They're also an outlier. You each find niches to cater to you, but you're not the majority case, and if you're interested in eyeballs for whatever reason, then dealing with the majority case is in your interests.
It's not just marketing either. Compare Arch's wiki (simple Mediawiki) to Debian's. Mediawiki is more complex than Debian's simple pages, yet it is far more readable. Even as 'just a tool, not marketing'[1], this heavier webpage is a better webpage.
[1] marketing isn't just selling stuff. for example, plenty of free software projects provide giveaways to conferences to raise their profile
People say they don't want shitty news either, but the news that is most popular is pretty low quality, sensationalist tripe.