Best way way I can think of to provide a tl;dr is that we live in a society where convergence towards the optimum is the goal. We have all this data to help us make these informed decisions. Companies (and people) feel a need, implicit or otherwise, to target the largest audience possible, which is just another way of saying that they're trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
My personal favorite example of this is how recently remodeled homes, particularly the ones that are trying to be sold, all have the same sort of grayish "trendy" minimalist interior. Odds are, they were advised to make their home look this way because it's the most broadly-appealing home interior that exists out there, supported by "the data". If you make your home look like this then you'll have more buyers, or so the logic goes.
Once you know about it though, you see it everywhere.
https://twitter.com/paulskallas/status/1546563161587089408 https://medium.com/@lindynewsletter/refinement-culture-51d96...
Best way way I can think of to provide a tl;dr is that we live in a society where convergence towards the optimum is the goal. We have all this data to help us make these informed decisions. Companies (and people) feel a need, implicit or otherwise, to target the largest audience possible, which is just another way of saying that they're trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
My personal favorite example of this is how recently remodeled homes, particularly the ones that are trying to be sold, all have the same sort of grayish "trendy" minimalist interior. Odds are, they were advised to make their home look this way because it's the most broadly-appealing home interior that exists out there, supported by "the data". If you make your home look like this then you'll have more buyers, or so the logic goes.
Once you know about it though, you see it everywhere.