Is Keyword Cannibalization Bad?

I am running a blog where I add an internal link with anchor text after two paragraphs (e.g., checkout target keyword) in every post (they are not related articles). But I needed some internal links. So I linked it.

Because of this, I see the keyword cannibalization in the SERP with my site for most of the keywords. I think keyword cannibalization is happening because of internal links.

So, right now, 2 different articles are ranking for most of my target keywords.

Is internal linking bad if topics are not related?
Will this affect my ranking in the long term? Because I did this with most of the articles.
Will this affect the CTR?

Do not link to unrelated articles. It is bad for user experience and thus Google will punish your website when users leave site instantly because of this.

lotsofmoney said:

Do not link to unrelated articles. It is bad for user experience and thus Google will punish your website when users leave site instantly because of this.

Click to expand...

Yes, true if you are linking to different content in the blog posts OR in articles then it will be very harmful for your website as bounce rate will increase and Google will down your site.

The answer is in the title:
generally speaking, is cannibalization good to you?
if so, then keyword cannibalization should be good too!

when it is so bad how many serp results telling us, then why the big boys like Zilla, Hearst and many others doing it?
Think about that....