For tech bros, the word [taste] seems to have a pragmatic function. By their definition, taste is inherently profitable; it is the ability to discern what will make the most money, whether by choosing your next big software concept or by convincing users that your product is necessary.

We might call what’s going on now “taste-washing,” an attempt to give anti-humanist technologies a veneer of liberal humanism.

Another conclusion might be that the online ecosystem has become so polluted—so fragmented, deceptive, overstimulating, ersatz—that it has warped our ability to exercise taste at all.