When we say, “There's nothing new here,” we're saying there's nothing new to US. It may be ALL new to someone else. The self-focus is a misleading one since it sees only from one perspective, our own.

I think of Shakespeare in another sense too: people often forget that with the possible exception of The Tempest, nothing he wrote was original. They are all based on histories and folk tales that had been told over and over. What was new and original was HOW he told them. So when we say, “nothing new,” maybe we just aren't looking close enough.

As for recommendations … that's one of my worries about Google, Facebook, Amazon etc. algorithms deciding what I'll find interesting. Often, I don't know what I'll find interesting until I see it. Sometimes I like going through a hodge podge because I never know what I'll find. As helpful as algorithms are, they also constrain us and our worldview.

Maybe that's an option all these tools should incorporate, as in safe, moderate etc. searches. We could include an on/off option for algorithms.