But you don't find them that way - you look for a solution to your problem, and you come across them. That's why they say "scratch your own itch"; someone else might have that itch too.

You search for JSON transformation, you get jq (that's how I found it, some years ago).

You're right that it was easier earlier. But there are new-unsolved-important problems all the time --- and "solutions to problems" radically narrows the search space.