A teacher once told us, "Everything has been done before - but not by you". Tell 50 people to make their own version of any story, and you'll get 50 new stories (though yeah, a bit of originality is great).

Also, artists need time to develop. Sturgeon's law isn't just for artists you know. Every artist knows that you generally have to create a lot of crap to get good. So when people give out about crap art, they're really just telling on themselves: "I don't create".

Finally, for fun, try comparing fossil fuel subsidies to artist subsidies some time. "But we need fossil fuel" - try going a week without any art; no music, no movies, no games.