I'm getting older and I have poor eyesight. The information density of the old design was a huge distraction for me, making it very difficult to actually read the news.
Whitespace can be incredibly helpful for readability.
What Project Kennedy tried to do and wasn't allowed to once the pitchforks came out, Material Design has successfully accomplished. I spent ten minutes trying to find the setting for a compact layout (like the Kennedy versions of Gmail and News eventually supported). Ugh.
I really do dislike it when tools start "simplifying" at the expense of their most invested users. While that cohort isn't always the most vocal, they're generally the most stable userbase. It really doesn't feel like that additional risk of abandonment is accounted for in the multi-armed bandit testing.
It practice it tends to be the exact opposite. Your most invested users tend to be the most vocal and least likely to represent the majority of your user base. The additional risk of abandonment of the entrenched super-users is usually 1. accepted in favor of appealing to a new, larger group of people 2. usually far less than those users will tell you.
To be fair, there's something that is actually more advanced.
In the settings, you can now block sources you don't ever want to see, by entering names. Before, you had to play the lottery of "wait until this stupid source with auto-generated news items based on stock tickers and press releases shows up in the right bar". That's the only place where you had the option to block them. You couldn't do it in the main section in the middle, which is where they tended to appear most often.
I just added a bunch.
Now, if I could follow Entertainment news about rock bands, without getting junk about the Kardashians and WWE...
Whitespace can be incredibly helpful for readability.