[nostrademons]

I think the root cause goes deeper than that, and has to do with economic incentives. Up through the 90s, the predominant business model was you sell a product, people use it to get work done, if they're happy they tell their friends and you sell more product. Starting in the 00s, the business model became you give a service away for free, get people hooked, make them so dependent upon it that they can't look away, and then either jack up prices to extort as much money from them as possible, sell advertisements so that other people can do the same, or sell their personal data so that other people can target them with sales pitches. Actually getting any work done became secondary to making the transaction happen. This applies just as much to enterprise software as consumer software, because the purchaser of enterprise software is usually some IT department, purchasing department, or executive who doesn't have to actually use the software, and they will probably move on to the next company before the consequences of their purchasing decision being useless become visible.

We are reaping the consequences of that now, where lots of transactions are happening that don't actually make anyone happy or productive.

But you can see how that would filter down into UI design. When your incentive is to make people happy and productive, you spend time studying how people actually use the product, and then optimize that so they can use the product more efficiently. When your incentive is to turn people into mindless consumers that keep coming back for more ads, you spend time studying what sort of content holds the user's attention, and then optimize that so you can work as many ads into the stream as possible without them turning away. When your incentive is to sell enterprise software, you spend time studying what sales pitches will get the budget-holder to open their company's wallets, and then optimize the sales funnel to the extent of actual product usability. Even if your users hate you, they don't get to decide whether they keep using you.