I'm not sure that's really true. Take, for example, the Harry Potter movies. They were great, but imperfect, and were really well received. But they are still being readapted into a TV series.
A bit off topic, but William Dalrymple's book "The Anarchy" does an excellent job tracking the development of the East India Company from "the king gives you a right to establish trade with India" to the "the purpose of [all of India] is to... increase the wealth of the [EIC shareholders]."
Early in my career, I worked for a company that had one of its five core values as "Maximize shareholder value" and these would get displayed all around the company (as if they were supposed to inspire us). I thought (1) 'I can't believe anyone is actually inspired by that' and (2) 'Well, at least they're honest about it'.
> I think to reduce social media to some of the crappy jobs it does serve artificially diminishes what it can be.
I agree completely with this. The article takes two bad parts of social media and assumes that those are the only uses for it. You've mentioned more. There's also keeping connected in a group context with family and friends that are scattered across the globe. I have an active family group in which my family shares pictures of nephews/nieces, vacation, and more - all stuff that helps keep us close when we can't see each other for long periods of time. I have an active friend group with my college roommates that does the same - when one of them discovered that his spouse was having an affair, we could all support him together.