[wongarsu]

But these lists also already fulfill the need. When there's a category of something people are interested in someone will eventually make an "awesome list of ...". The good lists become popular and become included in various "awesome list of lists" improving their discoverability, while the bad lists fade into obscurity. And since there is no central authority and plenty of alternatives each list can be opinionated instead of including everything under the sun.

These lists follow the same "survival of the fittest" that underlies capitalism and evolution, and while coordinated efforts have many advantages they also have all the disadvantages of monoliths. I think a Yahoo-like site would have a hard time producing a better result.

[hopler]

Free markets mostly work because people vote with their dollars. Democracies mostly work because people vote with their votes. Web democracies fail because votes are trivial to manipulate and gamed by SEO.

[wongarsu]

But web dictatorships work great because switching costs are low, so if a dictator doesn't deliver people just go somewhere else. While centralized link lists are often democratic, awesome lists form a network of dictatorships.