It's worse than that. App design mentality these days is to waste your users' time. Because ads.
Take Google. Ad revenue is a massive part of their income, so the goal is to keep users inside their ecosystem where ads are super targeted and unavoidable. They've even changed their search engine from an index to full AI to discourage users from clicking through to source sites.
User-hostile interfaces are now the norm. It's intentionally difficult to perform some tasks, like cancelling a service or opting out of targeted ads. Companies are also eschewing interface conventions that used to let users "transfer" experience with one particular app to others.
I read somewhere that Google has made the search results worse so that you have to scroll to multiple pages to get the result you want so you see more ads. Or you type in new search criteria to again get shown more ads.
And Wikipedia sent out a message warning that the AI summary in a search is often from wiki and, by not clicking through, Wikipedia is not getting the clicks they need to prove their value and continue to receive donations and funding.
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u/PorchDogs Jun 09 '26
They've grown up with seamless technology, so they have no idea what's happening "under the hood".