I'd have to say that it is actually you who must be ignorant of what a hyperlink is then...
It has been happenning for a long time, but EVERY place wants you to STAY in their place. Google search showing snippets, Facebook showing previews of links, then adding their own click tracking info to any links posted, and then just opening links inside of Facebook.. Twitter popularized link shortening services, The rise in popularity of video (TikTok, etc.) which make linking difficult, or at least buried in a link tree in the users bio or similar...
Even old fashioned email hasn't been spared.. Newsletters, etc. almost never post direct links, instead they post links to tracking/redirect/shortening services which (hopefully) eventually load the page you were hoping to see...
For every company out there spending thousands (and thousands) of dollars trying to teach their employees not to click on suspicious links in emails, how to spot suspicious links, etc... There are 100 companies making it impossible to follow any of that advice other than "don't click on anything"...
Then on top of all of that cultural pressure, add in company firewalls, web filters, etc. Many countries actively censoring/blocking sites and traffic they deem "unfit",
Hell.. Most ISP provided DNS servers filter traffic and send you to an ad-laden portal if you misspell or fat-finger a URL (For our own safety, of course!)...
The sad truth is that links scare a lot of people, and if some place can make money by ensuring nobody ever leaves their little walled garden, then that's what they will do.