I sometimes work in advertising and marketing, and the industry itself isn't always clear on what it's selling or how it's working. They have a measure called "reach" which pulls in some ridiculously large numbers by adding up everyone who could potentially view the digital platform. They have "views" which confirm the much smaller number of people who did see the content. The most prized metric is "engagement" in which someone likes or comments or in any way clicks within the URL.
This is why advertisers love influencers; they come with a built-in demographic and following. A vapid social media narcissist may make far more money than makes sense to us, but they are vastly cheaper to advertisers than a TV commercial on the CW, or a print ad in a publication no one reads anymore. Billions of advertising dollars migrated from old media to new media by companies that don't really understand new media. But it's cheaper, it's hyper-targeted, and it seems to be working. I'd like to say I never click on these social media billboards myself, but I did see a jacket I liked in a Facebook ad, and now I'm seeing men's jackets in my sleep.
Anecdote alert: my daughter's boyfriend was a gamer who put together a game-specific gaming team designed for even lazier gamers to watch. He asked us to Follow them so he could get his numbers up and monetize their gamecast. I asked him how many followers they needed in order to monetize, and his said 57 was the minimum required by the platform. I had more questions, but I didn't asked them because I was honestly embarrassed for him. This may or may not be why my daughter turned trans.
