RE: Building Long Term Value from your Blog
Content does have mostly subjective qualitative assessment, yet there is also content that has objective quality to it. Utility of content is one such measure. Knowledge about certain things has utility, and has more objective value than something that doesn't. Quality is measured in people work in many areas, even in creative, writing, and other areas you might apply as subjective. There are many degrees of quality measures to apply to different contexts. It's not about an absolute measure.
You're also conflating the issue of being able to objectively determine a valuation of something, with whether that's possible at all, by your argument with Facebook and other popular content. Popularity doesn't determine objective quality. Popularity doesn't determine truth. It's just a perception of what is trending and plays on emotional preferences of the most part.
Popularity is subjectively determined by peoples whims, wants and desires, not necessarily measured on actual meaningful quality motivations to improve their lives or the lives of others. Being led by basic emotional feel-good motivations is a non-reflective process, not a reflective, contemplative, thoughtful understanding of what to do and why to do. Populism, jumping on the bandwagon, is more in the herd group mind that individualist authentic thinking.
Anything happening is objectively happening, so yes "popularity is objective" but your conflating the issue here with what is meant. As I said, quality has subjective measure, and objective, depending on what your talking about.
Microbiology might have some utility for certain things, but there is other knowledge that is more useful in people lives if they could understand why. What is the utility of microbiology in someone's life? Will it help them improve the quality and condition of their lives on their own? Because the quality of important truths, principles and values for living, will help improve the quality and condition of our lives.
I would have thought popularity is subjective since it is subject to what people collectively think - similar to value
What people determine to be popular, is usually subjectively determind, but objective vauations can be used to favor something and everyone recognizeds that which makes it popular.
The objective part of popularity, or anything that is currently expressed in reality, is that it is currently in reality, as a certain quantity of whatever it is, hence it has an objective aspect to it due to it existing as a reference in reality.
People like apples but no oranges is subjective for the most part, but those people, and their liking something, is objectively true that they do or don't like something. So then, you could add up all the people who don't like something, and represent a certain popularity level against something. This is not looking at the subjective judgment of why people like something, but merely at the objective action that is part of reality: the choice to not eat the food they don't like.
I hope that clears it up. I was not saying popularity itself, is objective.