Man, the paradigms are jiggling. I believe what we have is a healthy thing; collaborative filtering, which is not unique and a very effective means of deriving information from the experiences and opinions of a number of people. A common use of collaborative filtering is the creation of lists of World Wide Web pages of interest to particular people. By documenting the experiences of several people, a list of interesting Web sites can be "filtered." Collaborative filtering is also used as a marketing research tool- by keeping a database of opinions and ratings regarding several products, researchers can predict which new products the people contributing to the database will like.
The equation is simple: research + self reliance = personal experience.
It's not about the one, it's about the whole.

If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you've never tried before.