This is an extremely poorly thought out article. The core idea, that you can't be the best at something and still fail, is so naive that it ruins everything else that the guy says.
Yes, the important thing is getting good information to the right readers, for whom it is relevant. Counting absolute page views is in the interests of SEO wizards and social media specialists. They monetize through page views and spam is a legitimate tactic.
It's hard to measure engagement on a news site when someone doesn't "like" and "share" the story because they don't want to share it with their social circles. If only there was a site that kept track of personal bookmarks.
