Its funny, it was all the rage several years ago, but I haven't heard mention of it for probably 5 years. It may not count much for linkbuilding, but surely it would be good for traffic.
It's still good for mega-traffic. Are you sure it's not a big SEO strategy nowadays, along with quality content? How else can Google judge a good website?
Link baiting is still very much alive I would think.. If someone likes your content and links to it without you asking then boom, that's link bait
linkbait is known as well as clickbait. Anyway "at the expense of quality or accuracy" means that it's something not so good today, since we are focusing on quality content. Not recommended today. My two cents.
It still works and people still do it but if you do it too much or all the time your site becomes known as a spoof site and people only end up reading the stories because they're so far fetched. It's never a good way to gain real credibility unless you want to go that way. But sometimes they just happen by accident anyway. Started one a while back on my drone site google drone steals mans dog in park police still baffled story. That went viral on reddit for a while. Haha suckers.