[cosmic_cheese]

I’m a dev not a designer, but I’d personally point to a few things:

- An influx of print/commercial/etc designers into UI design, who lack the full suite of knowledge and skills to design usable UI, crowding out the UI designer old guard

- The likes of Dribbble and other social media kicking off self reinforcing minimalism trends within the field

- The rise of “UI as branding” which places brand identity far above practical usability in terms of priorities

There are other factors like indie devs not wanting to hire a designer for their projects and just phoning that part in (which flat is conducive to), but they don’t have nearly as much sway on industry trends at large.