[chjohasbrouck]

I've always thought that maybe they optimize their designs specifically for A/B testability.

If everything is just kind of flat and grey, there's less noise, and it's easier to write A/B tests that produce meaningful results. That also means every product is flat and grey, though.

It could also just be a side-effect of having to appeal to every person on the planet, though. Sort of the design equivalent of a good politician, appealing to the lowest common denominator in all of us. Nothing to object to, but also nothing to love. Just flat and grey, with clearly displayed content and A/B optimized calls to action.

I find it incredibly boring and I'm getting tired of them rolling out new products that all look and feel exactly the same, but I suspect they have numbers that show any big design change would just be leaving money on the table.

[unabst]

It's because their guidelines are based on look and feel (aka "design"), not user experience or use case. They basically have no guidelines for the experience. It's all colors, motion, and size. Each product team then goes off and reinvents the experience, and decides to sacrifice the look and feel guidelines in the process.

The Google+ page doesn't even appear to have any breakpoints, which is against their own guidelines:

https://material.google.com/layout/responsive-ui.html#

Maybe those gutters are reserved for ads?