We lost something when the catalog was overtaken by the search engine. With a catalog you could aimlessly browse and passively learn a slice of what was possible and available in some space.

Of course a catalog is edited or curated which makes it biased but maybe more human editorial direction isn't such a bad thing in our current world of algorithmic optimized, SEO, echo chamber, click-bait choices.

Browse-ability allows non-focesed search and informs choices that are made at a later time from passive data gathering.