> Or am I just getting old?

Perhaps? But I think this is more a case of just not seeking things out.

Music is as vibrant and diverse as ever, but not if you're only looking at the top charts run by the music industry.

Same deal with games, there's more experimentation and interesting concepts in gaming than ever before, but not from the AAA studios.

Now I can't speak for how you vacation, but I've had wonderfully different experiences between Hamburg, Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Rome, Paris, Montpellier, London, Amsterdam, Oslo, and Florence. I just don't go to the starbucks and instead wander around a bit, optionally picking from a few hit destinations if I feel like it. But also, it's not like this was created for nothing: https://www.itchyfeetcomic.com/2018/10/omnimappus-europeus.h...

>Perhaps? But I think this is more a case of just not seeking things out

"If you went for deep dives and looked at fringe stuff there's still variety" is totally compatible with "the world is way more honogenized".

There have always been fringe unique voices, but that's beside the point. The world is not defined by the long tail, but by the top 20% most listened/visited areas/games played/movies watched/etc, that all now look the same.

>Music is as vibrant and diverse as ever, but not if you're only looking at the top charts run by the music industry"

So it's not "as vibrant and diverse as ever" then, since the same "top charts" were much more varied in the past, and they reflect what most people listen to, not just what some music nerds seek.

>Same deal with games, there's more experimentation and interesting concepts in gaming than ever before, but not from the AAA studios.

"There is more experimentation and interesting concepts in gaming than ever before" just not in the games most people play. Well, used to be ALSO in the games most people play.

>Now I can't speak for how you vacation, but I've had wonderfully different experiences between Hamburg, Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Rome, Paris, Montpellier, London, Amsterdam, Oslo, and Florence. I just don't go to the starbucks and instead wander around a bit, optionally picking from a few hit destinations if I feel like it.

Yes, if you go out of your way you can find some places in Hamburg, Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Rome, Paris, Montpellier, London, Amsterdam, Oslo, and Florence that are not all alike. Meanwhile, you could go anywhere in those cities 30 years ago and you'd find uniquely different stuff, whereas now all major streets and areas have the same globo cafe and globo shops.

> Same deal with games, there's more experimentation and interesting concepts in gaming than ever before, but not from the AAA studios.

I just wanted to add on to this, I wouldn't really classify modern games as "lower quality" than those of the 80s. I'm really not a fan of AAA games, I think the last one I played was Elden Ring, but I would never suggest that they're actively low quality. Uncompelling? Absolutely. But I also have spent a lot of time playing games from the 80s. Silver and golden age CRPGs, random simulators, DOS games that catch my eye. "Quality" isn't the first thing that jumps to my mind. Often they're ugly, terribly balanced, buggy, rife with all sorts of issues in any category you can think of. Games have come a very, very long way. 2400 AD (1988) and Champions of Krynn (1990) are relatively speaking highly polished masterpieces. They're still kusoge, honestly. I have very little experience with the consoles of that era, because pretty much nothing I see even remotely catches my eye.

On cities, I guess my point is that I didn't have to seek out new experiences. Simply going there guaranteed new experiences. I spent a lot of time in Vienna growing up and everything was different. I literally couldn't have a familiar experience even if I'd wanted to. In fact, I remember having to spend lots of money and travelling a long way to find a specialised shop to get a familiar food item (baked beans) to relieve the homesickness.

I don't think people under a certain age can really appreciate how different it was.