Similar/related theory I have is that humans have just gotten much better at optimization in the past 5 decades, and as a consequence we've lost a lot of variety present in decades past due to the fact that it's easier to recognize and attain the "optimal" configuration.
I see this not just in music, but in tons of different artistic areas. I think interior design most notably for me - SNL recently did a great send up of this with their "AirBnB Designers" skit, https://youtu.be/H5E5DkBXyfw
Back on the music front, I see this with annoyingly repetitive Spotify recommendations that I find nearly infuriating. My music tastes may be "pop-basic and bland", and at first I liked how I could just start with one song and then Spotify would create a playlist of related songs that I would (usually) like. Except it was always like the same 30-60 related songs. After a while I started hating using Spotify recommendations, they were always so incredibly annoyingly repetitive. Perhaps I'm just dumb and missed something, but I wish there was a way to tell Spotify "Please, for the love of God, just scramble your algorithm a bit and give me new recommended songs in the same genre!"
I’ve always wondered why they don’t do this already, it seems like a natural design feature to build around. Pandora had the same problem, if not worse. YouTube has it too, perhaps not as badly, but they’re kind of also their own SSP. If I had to guess, they don’t want to go making a lot of bad recommendations so they stay in a safe lane, and they probably also (more importantly?) have some contractual quotas to hit with big publishing partners.
I see this not just in music, but in tons of different artistic areas. I think interior design most notably for me - SNL recently did a great send up of this with their "AirBnB Designers" skit, https://youtu.be/H5E5DkBXyfw
Back on the music front, I see this with annoyingly repetitive Spotify recommendations that I find nearly infuriating. My music tastes may be "pop-basic and bland", and at first I liked how I could just start with one song and then Spotify would create a playlist of related songs that I would (usually) like. Except it was always like the same 30-60 related songs. After a while I started hating using Spotify recommendations, they were always so incredibly annoyingly repetitive. Perhaps I'm just dumb and missed something, but I wish there was a way to tell Spotify "Please, for the love of God, just scramble your algorithm a bit and give me new recommended songs in the same genre!"