There are always people trying to game the system. And then there are those publication that want you to follow them on 27 social media sites, sign up for a newsletter, and promote them to your friends to enter a writing contest. No thank you.

There is even one site that offers to buy your story for a few bucks and then publishes it under their own banner and collects the Partner Program money for themselves—forever.

I think you are better off with small to medium publications where the publisher actually cares more about what they publish than growing the publication.