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Can the aesthetic experience improve usefulness? A million years ago I had an MP3 player with all of my mp3s on it. I listened to it every now and then. But when the iPod came out, and I put my same MP3 library on there, I listened to it all the time because it was super nice to use and interact with

Is the author doing that over usefulness or doing that in addition to usefulness? Some people would also enjoy the journey with the tool, along with the results. Just because someone enjoys the 'taste' of the tool doesn't mean that they don't care about usefulness.

Also usefulness is very subjective too depending on the context and scope.

> And what I mean by taste here is simply the honed ability to distinguish mediocrity from excellence. This will be highly subjective, …

It is not about aesthetics , from my reading. You brought that connotation into the conversation.

Good for you, some people enjoy the journey.

Not only that but a tool is only useful in a specific context