I agree with this take, but we have to go a level deeper. For most of us, "taste" has been defined by "cultural authorities". Why were those folks authorities? Because some organization said so. Vogue, record labels, publishers, etc. Tastemakers became gatekeepers re: what cultural products received mass distribution. In the past decade, that system has broken down completely. This system was established centuries before, when these institutions were the locus point of the actual knowledge of things like art theory, music theory, etc. A piece of cultural production was "good" because it took this core knowledge and did something with it. Simply "making something pretty" was pastiche. Great artists pushed the boundaries of form and content while making something that evoked emotion no matter your level of context on the mechanics of the thing. Then (IMO) two things happened: 1. Art and commerce became too closely intertwined 2. Postmodernism nuked study/knowledge of the foundations of what makes good art This caused a decay in the authority of institutions. Tech enabled the final, tangible collapse. So today we're in an environment where "taste" is completely individual. It's literally down to the level of "what I like". If enough people like something, it's "good", or at least "effective at getting distribution". In fact, in a recent experiment, a group of random folks preferred AI-generated pastiche to real classic works of art. The fact is: AI slop "works", even if we think it is in bad taste. AI slop goes viral. TikTok drop shippers use AI slop slideshows to make thousands of dollars. This can't be a question of effectiveness; it has to be a question of what is worth preserving. So taste is a moot point unless two conditions are met: 1. You are creating things worth preserving (does advertising apply here? I think it can...) 2. You have the resources to preserve the thing, and probably to evangelize on its importance And probably 3. You know something about the first principles of "what makes some art better than others"