It SHOULD be about quality, and if they use Nostr then it is possible to make it about quality instead of quantity. But for people using centralized algo-driven social media, then unfortunately they have no choice but to gain the minimum follower/view count before they’re even allowed to monetize their content. And in order to gain followers, they have to be seen and that requires appeasing the algos, which ultimately service the advertisers and other corporate interests of the company running the network.  

 It's such a relatively recent and stupid incentive structure, which ends up creating some real monsters like the YouToob thumbnail faces.

It also pulls the ladder up from genuinely good content creators who don't have the tools that established ones do.

Ultimately they are all taking a big risk by monetizing on these platforms, because they can get rugged with a simple rule change at any moment.