The article says “averaging”, you say “converging”, but what if the operative verb is actually “optimizing”?

Certain looks get the most followers on Instagram. Movie posters are tested against focus groups. Market forces reward high end coffee shops that look a certain way. To me, the thread all of these have in common is optimization towards a certain goal.

And thus the sadness in our hearts is the feeling that aesthetics has been subsumed as yet another optimization problem.