Irrelevance - a phenomenon going extinct?

No, i did not spell it wrong, Irrelevance is what i am talking about

Entrepreneurs, Companies, Organizations, Marketers and all those who identify themselves under the umbrella of business, have begun to swear by the importance of “relevance” lately! Buy a watch on Flipkart once and more and more watches are shown to you, calling it “Relevant” I read technology news for a day or two and all i will be updated about eventually is Technology. You look for a book online and you keep attracting similar books.

Even the Facebook feed for instance will only show me updates of profiles that I regularly click on. Well, that’s sad because the whole point of being updated on the people I have lost touch with (in the physical world) is dissolved in this process. So, how exactly is Facebook connecting the world again?

This in case of an offline setup may end up being quite different. Let’s assume I love science fiction as my favorite genre. If I end up buying that book online, the internet has the lovely habit of showing me books of the same genre over and over again! So, I might not even end up attempting to look for what’s new in other genres. The purchase happens and the story ends. But imagine I am in a book store (a physical one) despite the fact that my eyes may first look out for science fiction, I will not miss on the opportunity to eye other genres as well. You never know which book may just impress you and you buy it, read it and what next, it might just end up giving you the next big idea in life! Does this show irrelevance is important? Am I missing it online?

Steve Jobs as we all know is a great businessman, a charismatic leader and everything under the sun that we can take inspiration from. Think of him and Technology is what comes to your mind first. Well, he chose to learn Calligraphy back at college! How irrelevant right? But as we know this helped him design the world’s most awesome GUI feature, “The Fonts”. If only irrelevance was so irrelevant, how could Jobs connect those dots in his life? How could he end up being charismatic and legendary?

This is what uxmag.com talks about calling it Meaningful Serendipity, it's all about surprising customers/users with spontaneous results. This i assume will soon be a great part of our Digital World. Does it sound like dejavu? like good old times? Ofcourse yes! Well, I am not against the wonderful algorithms that tailor content to my taste, however what i am talking about is excessive personalization that's narrowing down my world, my knowledge in particular. Don't you think?