Part of a critic's job is to educate people. A good critic can explain why a certain film is groundbreaking and why another film is recycling ideas that have been done thousands of times. The critic's end-goal is to push the industry to make better films not because of critics, but because the public demands it.

This doesn't seem right at all, a critic's job is to drive page views and nothing more. What you are describing is how critic's like to perceive themselves.

That’s hardly the only model. If you find a critic that has similar tastes as you then you can just follow their recommendations. That’s a relatively new thing as newspaper reviews where focused on a much wider audience, but with the internet you have a lot more choices for reviewers.