I really think that most designers have poor understanding of the confluence of creativity + functionalism + user needs. For every great designer, there are many who do not understand this balance. Combine that with trying to be trendy, aesthetic, flashy in addition to business/marketing objectives (ads, tracking, GDPR); you end up with a design enchilada as exemplified by the GP's link.
No bullshit, just content. I might be a minority, but to me aesthetics are not as important as the rest of the public values. Aesthetic aspects of design should follow and not lead in Design. Most people write this off as "non-designey" opinion who doesn't understand design which is not true. I think the Swiss in 1960's nailed aesthetics that don't get in the way, especially in layout (Muller-Brockmann) and typography (Frutiger).
These days, in design colleges we have this insane push for retro aesthetics (Brutalism, Vaporware, etc), trying to keep up with current trends as well as increasing pressure for originality. This leads designers to create substandard work in favor of originality. As Paul Rand said, "Don't try to be original. Just try to be good." - This sadly does not work when you're wired to do something different for your senior project as a designer. Designers graduate and create noise thereafter.
Furthermore, some of the burden of bad design should also be carried by the expectations from clients. It is not just about designers.
Edit: I just realized, I apologize how off-topic this discussion is to the original post.
Form _is_ function in a visual medium. If I can't easily parse the information in front of me, then the content is useless; my eyes will just glaze over. That's why we have design in the first place.
I can't stand MPFR's page. There's very little visual hierarchy, so if I go to the page, I have to look through all the text to find anything specific. For a library like this, a big, colored download button would just make everyone's life easier. And it's a small thing, but why put the introduction third, so I have to scroll to see it? Just put a short tag line up top so I know what I'm looking at.
I get the desire to have content, and I agree that modern trends often go too far the other direction, but there is such a thing as fetishizing blandness. It's just a chore to read.
And what exactly is wrong with the Go rebranding? They haven't even changed the website, so I don't even know what your criticism is other than "I don't like modern, sleek logos and typefaces." Because otherwise, Rust and the Go update have basically the same info design (modern type, single tag line, high contrast, etc.).
Also, since when have colleges been teaching Vaporwave? Isn't Vaporwave largely a meme? I don't really see it manifesting in any design trends beyond that domain.
I don't think they do. But Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is led by marketers and it is entirely focused on extracting as much value as possible from every visitor. Hence the need to capture as much information as you can, especially emails
They probably don't; I doubt many designers are thinking "wow, I really want to inundate my user with pop-ups," it's more that analysts have likely got numbers showing that having x calls to action yields y% more subscribers or can produce z% more ad revenue.
I can't stand chatbot popups on websites, because I know what I'm doing and don't like being bothered, but I can imagine that an older or less tech-savvy demographic might find the instant tech support quite novel.
