The most popular images don’t always go hand in hand with high technical quality, attention to detail, or adherence to compositional principles. Thoughtfully conceived and carefully planned photographs often gain recognition mainly among those who truly understand photography, while for a broader audience, images that are simply “pretty and colorful” tend to resonate more.
This is also heavily subjective, what we call most popular. If you take the audience, regardless if we're talking about art or photography, only a thin segment has proper education in these fields, so the rest can be considered amateurs (or call them whatever you like), so obviously not having the knowledge, they judge everything in a different way, meaning each of them are looking for something they like, be it colors, items, light, or God knows what.
So I'd say in each field there are the trend setters, the so called elite (known and famous artists and critiques), who kind of decide what is "quality", then there's the rest, who may not understand anything, but they look up to the artists and their work, because they are told this is high quality, exceptional, by any standard, and are those who don't care at all. If they don't like what they see, they have the courage to "not like it".
This is how I see this world, in very simple terms. I hope you understand what I'm saying.
I understand you, and I actually agree with many of the things you’re saying. However, I’ve noticed certain trends—especially on social media—where more amateur works, art, and photography can become incredibly popular (and I’m using the number of likes as a measure of popularity here).
I also see that within the amateur community, it’s usually the more accessible, colorful, and often technically weaker pieces that gain the most recognition on social media. Meanwhile, the more refined and carefully crafted works often go underappreciated. I’m speaking specifically about the world of more amateur creators and artists.
I think we need to distinguish between social media posts and actual exhibitions. You can post whatever you want on social media, any kind of art, but to make it to a gallery, it's a different matter.
From this conversation, I’ve come to understand that getting into a gallery is, for an artist, a bit like winning an Olympic medal for an athlete — the highest form of recognition.
You should read the following two posts and the comments too.
https://peakd.com/hive-194913/@holoz0r/celebrating-the-opening-of-my-photography-exhibition-myth
https://peakd.com/hive-109288/@holoz0r/the-end-of-myth
You might find some answers.