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Clicks Are Cheap; Taste Wins Wallets
Content is infinite, attention isn't. Marketers who master taste will define the next era.
Suyash Chaudhari
June 13, 2025
TL;DR (Because You’re Busy)
Stop competing on volume. Compete on taste.
AI can generate endless options. Your job is to choose wisely.
Great marketing isn't noise; it's selective storytelling.
In 2025, marketers who master taste own the wallet.
📚 First-Principles Playbook: 5-Part Series
1. Leverage > Labor
2. Centaur Advantage
3. Taste Is Currency ← you’re here
4. Velocity Loops Win
5. Small Teams, Enterprise Power
Photography's Digital Shift
Every marketer just became a photographer in 1995.
Digital cameras had just democratized photo-taking overnight. Anyone could shoot unlimited frames for free. Professional photographers faced extinction - or evolution.
The smart ones stopped selling camera skills and started selling judgment. They became visual editors, masters of choosing which frames mattered from thousands of options.
Your AI moment is here. ChatGPT can write 50 ad variations in 30 seconds. Midjourney generates endless creative concepts. The question isn't whether you can make content - it's whether you can choose the right content.
Miss this shift, and you'll be the film photographer insisting digital "lacks soul" while everyone else moves on.
Present Pattern: The Taste Advantage
Just as photographers adapted by shifting to editorial roles, today's marketers must navigate AI's endless content stream by mastering the art of taste.
“The important thing is not the camera but the eye.”
"You stand out by having good taste. We've seen a vast reduction in the cost of distribution of information, and now we're seeing a reduction in the cost of information production. And most of it is slop. I think taste is the most important thing."
Same insight, different decade. When production becomes free, taste becomes priceless.
AI’s content flood means marketers’ real leverage shifts from creation to curation. Audiences, overwhelmed by noise, crave clarity. They value brands that know what to amplify - and crucially, what to omit.
Technical execution is now commodity. Taste, editorial vision, and narrative become premium differentiators.
Your competitive edge? Editorial judgment.
Why the rush? Your competitors are figuring this out too. The marketers who develop editorial taste first will capture the premium clients who value strategy over tactics. Wait too long, and you'll compete on price with AI-powered content farms.
Playbook: Develop Your Editorial Eye
Sharpening taste isn't abstract. It's actionable:
Subtraction audits: Ask yourself, "What could we stop making that no one would miss?" Cut aggressively.
Customer energy mapping: Track what genuinely engages your audience versus what they just skim. Double down on energy creators; drop everything else.
Taste validators: Trust intuition first - "Does this feel right?" - then test for conversion. Instinct and data work best in partnership, not isolation.
Curation over creation: AI outputs countless options. Your task? Develop the taste to recognize what cuts through the noise - what Alex Komoroske calls standing out from "the slop."
Blind Spots to Avoid
The hardest part isn't learning to curate - it's accepting that most content starts raw and flavorless.
Personal preference ≠ market taste: Your favorite creative doesn't always win wallets. Test ruthlessly.
Over-curation kills authenticity: Perfect can be the enemy of compelling. Sometimes rough edges create connection.
Invisible masterpieces: Great taste without distribution is just expensive hobbies. Curation must serve strategy.
The "doing" addiction: Many marketers feel productive only when creating. Choosing feels passive. Fight this instinct - strategic selection is higher leverage than busy creation.
Predictions: The Inevitable Shift
The shift from creation to curation isn't a hypothetical - it's an inevitable transformation already underway.
Creative directors become curators: Their role evolves from making everything themselves to choosing intelligently among AI’s infinite options.
Curation-as-a-service overtakes content-as-a-service: Audiences and brands alike value edited, thoughtfully chosen outputs over raw generative volume.
"Edited reality" premiums: Consumers increasingly pay more for expertly curated experiences than raw AI-produced content alone.
The photographers who adapted early got the best clients. The same window is open for marketers - but it won't stay open long.
The Bottomline
Clicks are cheap. Taste is currency. Like photographers who thrived after digital cameras, marketers who master taste will own the premium market while others compete on volume.
Next Step: Start your subtraction audit - find the one thing to stop producing today. Your future self (and your customers) will thank you.
About Me
I’m Suyash – badminton junkie, ex‑GroupM ad‑ops grunt, first marketer at a B2B SaaS startup, and creator of Otto, the paid‑search autopilot.
My mission: think, so you can click less.
Let’s build leverage together.
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