I dunno, there is some interesting and innovative work being posted to the likes of Instagram, etc, you just don't see it so much in the explore feed or hear about it outside of the fine art photographic circles because it's not the kind of work that attracts tens of thousands of followers.
The original post, somewhat ironically cross-posted to the largest photographic news and blog post aggregator on the web today, seems to be more a case of redefining success at a tangent to what social media defines as success. There are plenty of photographers making a good steady living doing what they do without worrying about follower count, likes, or getting on the content treadmill. Arguably they have found success within their photographic niche.
If you're really trying to make it as a photographer you're probably concentrating more on calls for work, portfolio reviews, attending seminars/retreats, building a body of work, networking with those in the art world who can get your work in front of the "right" people, personal projects, long term ideas, and so on. Social media won't help you achieve those things.
It seems that the author had the revelation that success on social media (from a photographic point of view) is more an indication of how good you are at marketing yourself and not necessarily how good you are[1] as a photographer. Another example is YouTube, there are dozens of very popular photography channels run by photographers that produce mediocre, uninteresting work. That's not a bad thing, per se, but if it redefines what "success" is as a photographer to those who go purely by follower counts, etc then, well, who knows?
An analogy would be Red Bull: a hugely successful marketing company that happens to also produce really awful soft drinks.
I should probably turn this into a blog post...
[1] Beyond the realms of the boring technicalities i should say. There are countless photographers creating technically excellent, beautifully composed, utterly mundane work.