to make money it helps to insert yourself between people and something they may want or need. this is how pretty much every business works.
social media made it possible for anyone(?) to gain a following and so put themselves as a kind of authoritative middle man and act as a conduit for advertisers between people and thing they want
> "It was no longer about the actual qualities of the medium, not about videos or music or stories or essays etc. Everything one made was just content."
and the grift part came from the idea that the substance of the product itself doesn't matter as much as just getting yourself in the middle. getting a monopoly on eyeballs that are interested in the thing
a good example is those youtube farms that churn out history and economics videos where the presenter doesn't even know what he's saying, just reading words all day. content
at the end they are all selling the same thing, the idea of some happiness or entertainment