Quality stopped being rewarded, when?
IMO, this is the result of reducing the dimensionality of our human gifts and treasured values to a single number, a symbol. Quality becomes entropy.
We told the machines what to reward, and they obey. And it doesn't seem that they can reward quality.
Solutions? Popularity can come from both the lower qualities, such as hate and derision, as well as great quality, though the latter seems less common.
Solutions? People do pay for quality (sometimes) but despite decades of existence, the internet has no common micropayment. Just submit your credit card and wait for the inevitable database hack.