6mo ago

crafting a take that the modern minimalist movement was aggro-glommed onto by tech because the modern internet is so maximalist that front-loading minimalism is stimulatory damage control

not good for business if both the appearance and function of your products are giving people Lovecraftian breakdowns but you have to do infinite growth in scope so the only way out is to minimize the visual element

still in the oven though

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Silicon Valley is currently stuffed to the gills with people trying to escape their own products. Turns out knowing all the tricks to get people plugged in to your product does not make you immune to them.
- See also: The xitter output of elon musk.

That could definitely be part of it, but I think minimalist UIs can also be easier to make (and nicer to code). It doesn’t take a graphics artist to make some simple shapes in CSS (I’m absolutely not artistic but I can easily put together a decent looking simple UI) and vector graphics make it much easier to make elements look good on any size screen.
On the other hand, I’m pretty sure you could make a skeuomorphic UI with just CSS, but it would probably be harder to make a decent one.

I despise the youtube recommendations of some zoomer titled “How using a flip phone at 19 changed my life” and the video is some MBA or compsci guy typing on a tiny keyboard on a table with nothing on it

it makes sense. they want growth above all and new users get frustrated by the more useful and featureful but more complicated UIs.

Minimalist UIs give users less control over their devices it's really that simple

OK but have you considered Windows '95 was peak UI and it's all been downhill since?

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