Reality TV is a money maker because you barely need any writers.

Reality TV was a reaction to the (repeated) writers strikes. Content, no matter the quality, sells eyeballs. Quality almost doesn't matter in practice. As such, shitty TV that is poorly written makes money because their costs are so low. Not necessarily because people find them entertaining.

They're the McDonalds of Hollywood. Low effort, low cost content designed to fill up televisions but keep audiences with "something" between the major shows people watch.

And no. Reality TV isn't "real" either, its just unscripted, low effort television. Its roughly WWE where characters (and their actors) are given much leeway into the shots / script because they don't want to pay real writers to make an actual script.