I always felt this was a weird criticism, because a movie being a technical achievement, well-acted, well shot, etc... is more or less an objective thing. Of course you can have subjective tiers and whatnot, but what is the logic of nominating Ben Affleck over Daniel Day Lewis, for example, just because more people saw Batman than did Phantom Thread? No one said these award shows were popularity contests, so I don't see the conflict.
the conflict is people are automatically excluded from the awards because they are in movies that are popular or in certain genres. Same thing for best picture, best director, etc. Some genres get excluded from nominations and especially from winning because of the kind of movie they are, no matter how well they are made. Meanwhile movies nobody sees do get nominated. Just how good can the movie be if nobody even wanted to pay to see it before it was nominated?
I go through this every year with my wife. We try to watch all of the nominated movies before the academy awards, so many times, they aren't remotely as good as the movies I already watched that weren't nominated.
And most people must agree with me because the ones I like have massive box offices, while many of the nominated ones barely have any.
Formula to get nominations:
Make a movie about a historical person or event, make a musical, have a comedian play a serious role. It could be the same producers/directors/actors from other movies. They aren't suddenly better actors/producers/directors because of the subject matter.
Formula to get minimal nominations: make an action, comedy, comic book or sci fi movie. Occasionally there will be a token nomination everyone knows won't win, doesn't matter how well the movie is made, or how well the actors act. The one exception was Heath Ledger, who knows if he wins if he didn't die.
Not every action, comedy comic book or sci fi movie has Oscar caliber performances or direction, but a heck of a lot more of them do than get nominated.