> What's causing the rise of these curated lists?

People with good intentions that want a repo with a high star count. Getting over 500 stars on these readme-only/awesome/"curated" list is very easy.

The problem is that curating these lists isn't easy work - people will throw 50+ PRs at you adding their random project. Most maintainers blindly accept them and then the list becomes useless.

Sindre (original awesome list author) is one of the few who actually curates their lists.