I suspect a large part of the problem is that, at least in my experience, this is not at all explained to students and often the teachers themselves do it as “something that everybody does” rather than with the understanding that there is an underlying purposed that homework is meant to serve (which sould inform the when, what, how and how much of homework).

If see a similar kind of problem in my area (Software Development) all the time - people doing certain things because “they’re good practices”, “it’s what you’re supposed to do” or even “that’s what everybody does” without at all understanding the underlying reasons for doing it (and, more importantly, when to do it, when not to do it and how best to do it), which is why for example nowadays you have countless of “Agile” teams that are doing wrong or unecessary (in their context) parts of it whilst not doing the parts that the should do just doing things they think they’re supposed to do it but doing them incorrectly since they don’t get what those things are supposed to achieve and how.

Mind you, some people are just lazy, so some students will just “optimize away” homework with whatever tools they have to do so, even when knowing the purpose of homework and when being given the most learning-enhancing homework possible.