Call me stupid, but I’ve never been able to really understand what street photography means. Is it random pictures of strangers? Urban pictures? People living their daily lives? What defines a good photo in that category? For example, a good wildlife photo is one that shows an up close view of an animal in it’s environment, a good landscape photo brings out the beauty of a landscape with an attempt to make it look grand and dramatic. What sort of general criteria is there for street photography since it’s all the hype now
It’s not all the hype now, it’s been all hype ever since the cameras started to become available.
The beauty of (good) street photography is the unreproduceability. Every person can go to Horseshoe Bend and take beautiful sunset pictures if they study little bit of theory, but very few people can get similar street photography results to the masters. That takes time, good eye, sense of storytelling. Good street photograph has a story behind it - which can be very superficial (basically photo version of one like joke) or very deep (a documentary about a city riddled with AIDS).
However (and unfortunately), from the most people it is only what you described - random pictures of strangers.