[hinkley]

The changing audience isn't the biggest reason they're more popular. When people talk about 'stickiness' they're talking about using Dark Patterns of UI and/or using hyperbolic tone (formerly known as Yellow Journalism) to pander or incite, which makes you stick around long after you got the information you thought you came for.

Relatively wholesome sites like Wikipedia can't compete on numbers and hours of visitors because they limit themselves mostly to 'see also', and commentary is split onto another page so you have to choose to see it every time.

[nsgi]

At the end of the day it's peoples' choice whether they choose to read sites like that, which pages they like on Facebook, etc. Those sites are popular for the same reason newspapers like the New York Post and the Daily Mail are popular. For as long as newspapers have been published online, those sites have been part of the web. Maybe not BuzzFeed, but sites posting sensationalist content.

Wikipedia is definitely able to compete. It is the 5th most popular website, behind Google and Facebook but ahead of every online tabloid and content farm.