I love the scheme of repeatedly building up towards the answer to one of the central questions of the subject and then yanking the rug, digressing into some backstory of a minor personage or historic aside to pad out another page.

And by love I mean absolutely despise.

What really gets me is how, in narrative fiction, the author knows what's going to happen in the plot at the very beginning, but they only gradually reveal it to the reader throughout the story.

If the entire value of an item of writing hinges on the revelation of a single fact, then the writing is flawed.

State the fact and be done with it.

(As I've just done here.)

If the writing has value, the fact will be immaterial to that value, and the true reward for the reader is in the telling of the story, the narrative developed, the introduction and interrelation of facts, concepts, characters, strengths, and flaws. And yes, telling those, where they are material to the story, takes time, but also is its own constant reward.

We have classics of literature and mythology. The stories are well known. The boy loses the girl, then wins her back. The dog dies. We all die. A tree grows in Brooklyn. George slays the dragon. Cinderella wins the prince. The Wicked Witch is overcome. Jesus dies, then returns. Buddha is enlightened.

Those facts don't matter to the value of the story. It's the details built up along the way, the morals and principles exposed, which do.

Build your stories around those, then pull away all that truly does not matter.

(This sounds simple. It's much harder than it seems.)

Composing narrative fiction by ending every chapter in a cliffhanger is an excellent way to get your readers to skip to the end and then throw it away.

I think some of the value of long articles is simply that they are long -- if you can get into them, they get you away from news feeds long enough so that the effect feels calming. Regardless of actual content.