My gf (who used to work in the sector) says a lot of people like to sit in front of the TV and “watch what’s on” — one of the reasons broadcast TV still exists.
You see this with sites like Netflix becoming decreasingly useful, urging you to simply click on something rather than consult your curated watch list. Some of them now hide your watch list!
She suggests the same applies to shopping: some people just want to push the buy button, which is well known in brick and mortar retail, especially low margin ones like grocery shops: end caps, mid shelves and all sorts of other strategies are used to get you to either buy on impulse or buy the version they’d rather sell of what you have in mind.
So for these sites the same applies: show a few options and the customer will simply pick one. Spam the tags, DWIM the customer’s ill-formed, uninformed, or simply unsatisfiable query, and see if the punter buys.
For nerds like us this is a pessimization. But perhaps for the majority this works better.