We love lists. As people, we have an insatiable desire to sum up our society's collective achievements in list form. From entertainment, to history, to technology, to anything you can imagine. The accomplishments of one person, to the whole of human history. If you're in a less positive mood there is a list for that too, compiling the worst of everything. Around the world, innumerable publications have compiled their best attempts at a list of what they see as the best and worst of whatever they feel is relevant to their audience.
Why do we love lists so much? Part of it is confirming what we know. Everyone has their favorite things, and it is somewhat gratifying your own selections making their way to the top of the various chronicles of human achievement. People feel strongly about their favorite things, so it's strangely pleasing to see complete strangers come up with the same conclusion, to confirm that your favorites are not merely something you like, but something that has been confirmed to be great by a governing body of some kind, or at least someone paid to chronicle the greatest things ever.
That also ties into the second part, which is that people love arguing about these lists as well. This has been made especially evident with the invention of internet comment sections, which erupt into a certain fury whenever a list does not quite align with their own preferences. An unworthy entry will get ripped apart, a potential entrant that was neglected will get championed, and the whole thing will be a chaotic mess of expletives and indignation. Which is great, because that generates traffic and sales, which makes money. Thus, the anger drives the creation of more lists, in the hopes that the result can be repeated. Because there will always be outliers, and declaring something the greatest ever will be controversial, the anger will be guaranteed.
The third is usually to inspire discovery, at least that's how I like to use them. A list of the 100 greatest albums, for example, will contain mostly albums which are quite popular and well known, usually clustered near the top, but will also have a few less famous entries, so there are new artists to check out and get familiar with. Lists of great vacation destinations might be there to sell vacation packages, but if you're looking for a vacation you might be interested in buying a vacation package anyway, and it would provide a good place to start when planning that trip. A list of places with a high murder rate is also useful when planning a vacation, given that being murdered would be a low point on any holiday.
Finally, people just love to rank things. I don't know why, but I do it myself. I once decided to create a list of my favorite movies, for example, for no reason except my own amusement. There are places online dedicated to creating, sharing, and comparing lists made by people from all over the world, and these could not function without people having a genuine desire to create, share and compare the various different lists they create themselves. Even as someone who has done this, I can't quite figure out the appeal. It is undeniable, and part of the reason why a good list is something which millions of people have created, both for themselves and the people around them.
