I genuinely can't see the point or purpose of atonality either, but that is not to say it doesn't have a point or purpose, as I'm sure Michael would agree.

Dick, Mozart had to please his paymasters until the last ten years of his short life, then he had to scratch out a living (not make a fortune) during the rest of his life, hopefully writing music that would get bums on seats in the venues he had to hire. The fact that he did all this without compromising his artistic integrity is testament to his genius, especially when you consider that he was hopeless with money and had money worries and indebtedness all through his adult life. It would be ludicrous to assert that he wasn't constantly thinking about money when he composed. Beethoven was obsessed with money and frequently held that the world was out to cheat him. You can produce good art and still make money. You can produce good art and die in penury. You can produce what you and I might consider to be rubbish and make pots of money. But someone else doesn't see rubbish where you and I might see it. The outcome of our constantly disparaging stuff not to our taste is far less desirable than the outcome of our just shutting up about it. After all, it can't hurt us.