Sometimes yes, sometimes no... formulaic writing (sometimes called "spun content") is taking something fairly common and just rewriting it, even if it has already been said 1000 times. It has no value, other than to fill space. Like "Common features of a smartphone." It has been said many times, and a new person changing the order of the features does not make it either good OR original content.

"Popular" writing is more about pursuing the "hot topic" of the moment. This week a popular post might be "Bitcoin reaches all-time high." Next week, some other new item, some trend. Some popular topics stay for a long time... for example, here it might be "How to make the best posts on Steemit." But how much does that really change? How many truly NEW points can someone make?