I would argue that if you can't make a profit you have shown you are tasteless. If other people don't enjoy it enough to pay you, that says a lot about how out of step you are.
If I were to bet on whether the critical consensus or some random person on HN had no taste, I would certainly bet on the latter. This post reeks of "Am I wrong? No! It is the artists, critics, collectors, and community who are wrong!"
Having a number doesn't make the number a good measure.
If all I have is a yardstick, and I'm trying to measure weight, then I would probably be much better served using a qualitative method than by trying to use the yardstick.
Not at all. The actual value of money comes from violence. This is objective, not subjective. If you have a certain amount of taxable income in the USA (or subject to US legal jurisdiction) then you're required to pay tax in US dollars: the IRS won't accept Euros or gold or anything else. If you fail to pay then eventually IRS employees will seize dollars from your financial accounts, or seize other assets and sell them for dollars. And if you try to physically stop them then they'll arrest you, or even shoot you.
And to be clear, I don't think this is a bad thing. It's necessary to keep civilization working.
The threat of violence is still there only due to the collective subjective agreement that countries exist.
The IRS would have no functional power if Washington, D.C. and other major US cities were destroyed in a nuclear exchange.
I could imagine many citizens still choosing to pay taxes of some sort and/or respect the value of physical dollars in such a scenario, but it would likely not be due to fear of the federal government. Possibly fear of local police, though.
the only objective sign that it provides is that you objectively have a lot of money.
if I inherit $44 million dollars because I happened to fall out of the right vagina the only thing it symbolizes is that I got lucky -- I could be a fat, degenerate bastard underserving of anything.
there is always luck. For most we are not talking about such luck and can just say money is a result of hard work. So if/how you choose to spend it matters.
Popularity says that a lot of other people agree there is value there. While I'm not informed enough to say what 'taste' means exactly, the common understanding that seems to be present in this comment section is that it's not a direct proxy for goodness, usefulness etc, like what you imply. I think most would agree that there are tasteful things that aren't also mass-marketable immediately useful goods or services.
Profit is “how much your whole is more valuable than the sum of parts it consists of”. If your taste is what makes it valuable, then more profits reflect more taste.