[tristor]

> The most of this mythical "taste", at least as hinted by the article, can be acquired rather easily—by looking into what's already out there before jumping to creating.

Yes, you should do discovery, but that alone is not sufficient to develop taste. Being an also-ran is low taste even if you religiously meet the market expectations by following a pattern. Just like in fashion, you need to understand the rules to know when its okay to break the rules so that you appear fashion-forward, that is a form of taste no differently.

[selridge]

Almost like the rules for taste are made up on the fly…

[tristor]

Of course they are, taste is a social conversation to align for a window of time on a set of guidelines. Taste is a social construct, being a social construct (or "made up") does not make it any less real or valuable.