Fructose is not bad, no food is inherently bad. It's all a matter of degrees.
If you consume 10 cans of coke a day, and you're over your maintenance caloric intake by 1000 calories daily. guess what? you'll get fat and probably not be healthy. if you overconsume sweet potatoes by 1000 calories over your maintenance intake daily. guess what? you'll get fat and probably not be healthy.
Fructose is actually bad but that isn't the whole story. Fructose is only bad when consumed at a poor ratio relative to glucose. If you are eating 1:1 fructose/glucose, you can properly digest and use the energy from both. If you are too skewed towards fructose, it is less likely your small intestine will successfully digest the fructose, and it will make it to your large intestine and cause IBS, inflammation, hormonal disruption, etc. Reference low FODMAP diet and frustose malabsorbtion if you want to read into it.
Fructose is NOT inherently bad. When liver glycogen stores are depleted, fructose has no negative health effects. The problem is when you are eating in a calorie surplus, and the only way for the liver to deal with that fructose is via de-novo lipogenesis.
In a natural environment, the only real sources of fructose are either fiber-heavy (most fruits) or somewhat rare (honey, berries).
Fructose is bad. It's certainly something that should be eaten in moderation.
Your food is not being engineered to be better for you. It's being engineered to be cheaper and easier to produce and sell. There are trade-offs.