There is a fundamental difference between an influencer (fake like the above) and what many do here (feature accounts that repost).
An influencer account usually has a visible persona (person) behind it where brands finds that person attractive enough to warrant a sponsorship.. What many do here are gaming for shout-outs.
Those two are distinctively different. Feature accounts are used to drive traffic. Hence, paid shout-outs. Influencers are brand ambassadors.Eventually fake one like above gets caught.
As they eventually have to take photos of themselves with the product to endorse it. In the article, which I am fully aware of, never got that far. They were able to build a size where they could go to brokerage agencies/services. Those brokers take anyone from 5k to 10k and up and broker deals with small brands. That was as far as they got. They may able to get far enough to sponsor a post where the brand sends them an image and that is as far as it will go.
Again, you need to have a visible persona behind the account... I read about some 15 year boy who did this and ended up having to get High School sophmore girlfriend to do hand shots of products but it got borderline fraud/scam that he had to quit.
There are lots of 100k luxury mens fashion accounts run by kids. They repost GQ/Esquire/steal other people's images.. Some stupid shopify guy might fall for it. Then when it comes to having actual paid models/photosoots, those scam accounts get caught because they can't re-produce those type of imagery they stole... Hence,the reason they stick to $40 shout-outs versus $1-$3,000 sponsored post a real 100k influencer account has. The real 100k account probably has a team behind it that includes stylist, photographer, and art direction.