I made a comment related to this recently (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45486391 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45486391) and I got a lot of helpf

I made a comment related to this recently (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45486391 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45486391) and I got a lot of helpful responses that I think help explain some of these trends: 1. With the Internet, things "converge to an optimum" much faster than before where you had more regional variation. Dominant design, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominant_design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominant_design, explains part of this trend. 2. This article from earlier this year, "The age of average", https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average, makes many of the same points but links to other good posts that help explain the change, particularly as it applies to business consolidation and risk aversion.