> only photographers care about that, to most people it's just pictures

This is largely true, when it comes to photos of other people/people they care about.

I'm a wedding & family photographer part time, and at nearly every wedding I shoot, the photos the clients and their guests favorite the most from the galleries are usually the quick candid snaps where the subject has an expression they like or are doing something fun. It could be a blurry, grainy, dark mess of a photo and it will consistently be their favorite photo of the day.

For most non-photographers, the subject of the photo is what matters and is all they will notice. Almost no one is making a distinction between bokeh shape, or noise (unless its so obvious as to completely ruin the photo), composition, etc.

All that to say, photo quality is only one very small part of the equation.