Maybe you skipped that or misinterpreted it, but he's explicit about it being just a dump of stuff he likes. But the main benefit _is_ for an audience of some sort, maybe not the general public, but certainly more than himself.
Perhaps you are right, perhaps only now I understand this, and I did not really paid that much attention to the disclaimer at the top of the site, EVER, until now.
I still think the main benefit of a list like this is for its creator. The way I know is because, even if no lists like this existed, I have been building my own list of "best things" of ... forever!
We tend to do things yearly because of society, culture, etc etc... there's no reason we should have "end of year resolutions" or "best of last year". I think lists like these encourage breadth first search and distract us from the fact that curation should be a continuous process, not necessarily something we do at end of year.
Again, I'm not criticizing or attacking Fogus in any way. In fact, I will probably take a deeper look at this list soon! But I will also try to produce more and consume less. And I will do my own research!
This is not to rate or devalue the efforts of Fogus in publishing these lists.
A different way of saying the same thing: I wish the first time I saw these lists, it was prefixed by something like:
"The main value of these lists is not for the general public, but for myself. Don't be afraid to have your own favorite things of the last year. Build your own lists! Go crazy. Creating is complementary to consuming and both are necessary for growth. Be Happy!"
This is my interpretation, but I'm pretty confident in this conclusion. Prove me wrong in replies! Or agree with me! Both kinds of reactions should be fun to engage with :-).