Why not? That opinion komponisto has that differs from yours is the basis for the rest of his arguments on his topic -- so it's pretty damning that he's constantly searching for arguments he can deploy for why MACs can't write popular music.

I don't think this is the right way to look at the issue.

komponisto appears to differ from both of us on how one should judge musical quality. But I agree with him that popular success is not a good metric to use, and am not surprised that he is repeatedly searching for counterarguments to your point if you won't abandon it.

His argument, as I understand it, is that MACs don't write popular music because they aren't trying to write popular music; they're trying to write music according to their highly specialized standards. My argument is that even if they were trying to write popular music, they would find it very difficult for reasons independent of their quality as composers. It's telling that of the best-known artists playing classical instruments, the ones that aren't playing historical greats are playing Metallica. Composers are in a rather saturated field (which explains why they would retreat into specialized standards), and a large component of popularity is popularization rather than raw talent (which cements that specialization as a reinforcer of internal popularity and diminisher of external popularity).