Exactly. Sites like BuzzFeed and Vice have some pretty trashy stuff, so people dismiss their small forays into "real" journalism as irrelevant posturing—but I don't think that's the case. In the past, quality journalists went to quality publications because the only place to find quality journalism was in a quality publication. Now, with people getting their articles from aggregators, social media and cross-linking, it's no longer important what publication a writer writes for. A journalist for BuzzFeed can write (nearly) the same article they would for the New York Times, and (nearly) the same people (within the younger audience, at least) will be able to discover it. The publication is less relevant as an institution and a brand — BuzzFeed, HuffPo and the ilk are just investors and CMS's for the work of individual writers.
I think you're absolutely correct about the writers having potentially equitable quality, but I would challenge the following statement:
> The publication is less relevant as an institution and a brand
Journalism, and journalists, need to be trusted to deliver researched and verifiable content. This seems to be enforced because of reputation – i.e, the reputation of a publication.
When an organization does what BuzzFeed does to earn eyeballs, dollars and readership, it makes you question what they would do in more serious, "important" topics, such as describing world events to future voters.
I have trouble trusting BuzzFeed as an organization, as with Vice, due to this "trashiness". I think we all should.
Tl;dr: online news has been unbundled.