A vital part of selling is branding. People will not buy my products unless they are strongly supported the my brand which they already know and trust. Secondly, as all sites are so different, and require the user to perform different tasks in order to extract whatever they require from the site. The central point of this, is what the user puts into the site depends entirely on what the user gets out of it. Thirdly, I feel websites are a product which you ask people to buy, using their time and attention as currency.
Users buy a product because they prefer it, and are stimulated by it.
Receiving information is what people want, but they would prefer to receive that information and could use it better if it was tailored, and not standardised. If all breakfast cereals came in the same grey boxes, no-one would eat breakfast cereal. The reason why they would not eat it, is because they would not buy it because it looked boring. Sales of fruit would increase, because fruit comes in all sorts of interesting shapes and colours. To conclude, I feel that web design will continue to be fundamental in getting people into a site, and keeping them interested and engaged in your site.