Not in the slightest. As a counter-example, challenging food and music comes to mind.

How are those counter-examples?

I do not watch American Football. I understand the overall rules of the game, and I don't particularly enjoy it.

However, I have not immersed myself in the game enough to be able to understand what is a good play and what is a great play. I don't understand the lingo, I don't understand the strategy and I don't understand the tactics.

Am I in a position to judge then whether one player (or game) is better than another? I don't believe I am.

Substitute with chess if you like. A chess aficionado may find a lot of pleasurable excitement in a move that an amateur may see as pointless.

There are also concepts you've heard of such as a "musician's musician" or a "comedian's comedian" - wherein deep knowledge of the craft gives a different appreciation of the experience.

Consumable subjective experiences (fine art, wine, food, music) are not always naturally pleasing on the first-go. Learning of the nuances, and being taught to identify the existence/lack of those nuances, aid in development of an opinion.

While I happen to agree that people should just "buy what they like," the path to forming an opinion is usually a guided one.

In the same way that being able to tell the difference between good and bad code takes time for a novice. Just because you have to learn to distinguish what makes some code more easily understood, easier to maintain, more robust, etc., doesn't make the notion of telling good from bad a bogus pursuit.

The code analogy is silly. With wine (or food) we're talking about a fundamental sense we all have. Everyone can eat and drink and either the stuff tastes good to people or it doesn't. And that's the point of the food/drink to begin with. The point of code is not generally to appeal to novices' innate sense of code aesthetics.

Chef: You stupid amateurs could never appreciate my noodles!

Tampopo: But people who eat noodles are all amateurs. So why make noodles amateurs can't appreciate?

No.