Utilitarianism definitely has a lot of well established shortcomings, like quantifying utility and doing so objectively which sort of, IMO, makes most of it nonsensical as quantified utility is ultimately subjective unless you want utility to be defined by a consensus, which is what we do in practice. So it’s really what the masses decide is valuable and how valuable, even though we know from practice that mass assessment isn’t inherently accurate, good, or often even desirable. Yet we do it because it looks objectively analytic.

> Did people make art to be measured or to be useful?

Quite often to put food on the table, or for clout. There’s an intrinsic desire to create, sure, but there’s also a cultural context in which art is valued and certain kinds of art are valued more at different times or in different places.

I suppose it’s splitting hairs to say that art has some use both for the creator and the consumer, because it’s not the same kind of use you mean.

It’s just that when I dig in to “useful” vs “useless” endevours there’s often no clear line between them.

There's a long history of visual art being created in the service of god worship. Musical art too. Much of Bach's oeuvre is in service to the god of the Protestant church.

> There's an idea that modern lives demand value in material terms. All lives demand value in caloric or reproductive terms. Economics teaches us that most commodities are fungible. If you receive material value, this can be exchanged for caloric or reproductive value. Thus, modern (and non-modern) lives demand value in material terms. This isn't a philosophy, it's just a fact.

It may tasteless to you, but most people are just trying to achieve those material terms as efficiently as possible.