I think you're on to something here. An image on the NYT website has a viewership that decays exponentially over a couple of days. And NYT gets to cycle through

I think you're on to something here. An image on the NYT website has a viewership that decays exponentially over a couple of days. And NYT gets to cycle through dozens of articles every day. So, images are designed to hook a user's attention, and even if happens to be annoying, nobody looks at it after a day or two. On the other hand, an app's interface is something the users look at for a much more extended period. To compare with newspapers, think about the web interface of different newspapers (or even the layout of most print newspapers) -- you'll be amazed at how similar they are! I just looked at: https://www.nytimes.com/ https://www.nytimes.com/ , https://www.washingtonpost.com/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/ , https://www.bostonglobe.com/ https://www.bostonglobe.com/ So, while I would like more variety in interfaces, I think it's a very hard problem.