[vikboyechko]

A lot of houses also look the same, but different people live in them. Makes you appreciate the designs that are truly unique, or contemporary, or classic, but most people would rather have any house versus none at all. So to me if a person vibe codes a web site that they otherwise don’t have the time or money to create and the website serves a purpose or brings joy, then cool.

[itsme0000]

Why are we supposed appreciate unique web design?

The best designed sites I use are those cookie-cutter illegal sports steaming sites because their design is so similar I can navigate them all the same way.

[tavavex]

The example you gave is the exception, not the rule. Sharing UX among these streaming sites is expected because they're completely replaceable, and you expect to churn through them as they shut down and pop up again somewhere else. Why would any of them want to change anything up if it might disappear in a week?

People like unique designs because those designs (ideally) exist to cater to the ever-so-slightly different needs, different things that different websites are meant to convey or do. It's not just about being pretty or looking not like everyone else, though some users and designers can mistake it for that.

Even something like video streaming can have lots of variations because there's so many different types of video content to serve. Optimizing for these needs will require making design choices, which will eventually compound in a unique UX. I enjoy websites that are fine-tuned for serving their purpose, and that manage to do so in a simple and performant way. Generic boilerplate designs can work fine on most 'average' websites, but going further requires putting more thought into it.

[itsme0000]

Ironic how long and empty this argument is, kinda proves my point. Who cares? I want an average website not a weird one.

[tavavex]

It's not empty. Do you think I sat down and thought "let's write down a post that looks like something but is actually nothing"? I assumed you'd be able to infer some examples from what I gave you. Sorry it took me longer than a sentence.

Take video streaming, like what you mentioned. Say, you have livestreaming available. How do you let the user go back and watch back old recordings? Split up the stream by days? Hours? Separate events? Have a video player with infinite seek? Be able to type in the date of the recording? A sports streaming site would answer these differently from a gaming site or your indoor camera's website. What about offering episodic content? Should it play back-to-back? Do you want fancy lists with thumbnails or will "Episode 1", "Episode 2" do just fine? Okay, now what about ad types? Should there be recommendations? Do you want a way to expand the player and dim the rest of the UI? And thousands more questions like these.

You need to make design decisions, it's inherent in the job. Being "average" just means relegating these decisions to something someone else has done before. And this can be done well, but it can also be done out of laziness that leads to obtuse GUIs that bother themselves more with current trends or eye candy than thinking about what it's made for.