All mature design fields find convention; without them you would alienate users and increase cognitive load. The chair's pretty much been figured out, but that doesn't stop people from designing new ones and finding pleasure in that. Our job as designers is to use and exploit those conventions to create something new, but familiar enough to be usable. Of course, there's still room for one-off experiments, but most websites should be geared towards the average user. As such, websites are starting to consolidate around certain layouts, features, and iconography. And that's a good thing, not a bad one.
All mature design fields find convention; without them you would alienate users and increase cognitive load. The chair's pretty much been figured out, but that doesn't stop people from designing new ones and finding pleasure in that. Our job as designers is to use and exploit those conventions to create something new, but familiar enough to be usable. Of course, there's still room for one-off experiments, but most websites should be geared towards the average user. As such, websites are starting to consolidate around certain layouts, features, and iconography. And that's a good thing, not a bad one.