I think a lot of factors that I've started calling design moneyball have resulted in this doldrum. Every single aspect of the product life cycle has been finessed for maximum efficiency and low barrier to entry. From the cost of tools to processes.

The web has flattened and reduced communication barriers. Designers can can quickly hop on dribble and see how someone else solved a problem. We can share what's cool and what's not. Product teams have shredded every single design to its most economic and efficient form. Gig engineers and designers can be hired at a moments notice.

Supply chains have all concentrated around Asia, where every single manufacturer copies one another. Amazon has created a digital store for everyone on earth to shop in and allows entrepreneurs to see what's popular.

With reduced barrier to entry of designing and creating products, marketing, and cheap manufacturing coupled with expedited shipping we've made fast consumerism even faster. There is always a constant buyer because the world is getting richer, people from emerging markets can afford more things, and what was once cool to Westerners, now old and stale, is still new to someone else. The moneyball effect doesn’t require something new or revolutionary, in fact, it generally runs away from it or flattens with the steamroller of refinement. Unfortunately this has worked its way into most aspects of culture like entertainment. Show me a movie that isn’t a sequel or some recycled IP, or a top song that isn’t EDM or hip hop or country and I’ll show you something that only occurs 10% of the time.

Just wait until the masses get ahold of AI. That’ll kick recycling into overdrive.