the rules

[NightWill]

I've always played carcassonne in person before covid. now trying to play online is really tough. the rules state:

1. Placing Land tiles
At the beginning of their turn, a player must draw one of the face-down Land tiles. He looks at it and shows it to the other
players (allowing them to "help" him)

yet a majority of the players online don't play with this spirit, they try to steal points instead. why?

[Meeplelowda]

I've always played carcassonne in person before covid. now trying to play online is really tough. the rules state:

1. Placing Land tiles
At the beginning of their turn, a player must draw one of the face-down Land tiles. He looks at it and shows it to the other
players (allowing them to "help" him)

yet a majority of the players online don't play with this spirit, they try to steal points instead. why?

Look up the definition of "scare quotes."

"Forbidden Island" is a nice cooperative game if that is what you're looking for.

[MoiMagnus]

+ This paragraph about helping others is not present in all the rulebooks. It seems it has been removed from the most recent ones, but it might be more complex that that. So a significant portion of the players probably never read that sentence. On BGA, neither the French or the English rules have it, though the linked pdf in French has it (but not the English one).
+ The quote around the 'advice' (or 'help') has been interpreted by a lot of tables as meaning a non-genuine advice (trying to influence someone else into a move advantageous to you). A lot of tables actually give genuine advices. It depends a lot on the table.
+ I've not played on BGA, but I know that IRL a lot of tables draw their tile in advance (just after playing rather than at the beginning of their round) so that they get a full round to think about it. But that mean they cannot give advice to the current player as they already know what they're gonna play in advance.

[stevage]

yet a majority of the players online don't play with this spirit, they try to steal points instead. why?

It's not a co-operative game. Most people play competitively - doing whatever is within the rules to win.