Oh yeah I'd bet crappy UIs are just laziness/sloppiness/prioritization rather than malice. The glamorous frontend work that gets lots of design attention is the

Oh yeah I'd bet crappy UIs are just laziness/sloppiness/prioritization rather than malice. The glamorous frontend work that gets lots of design attention is the stuff that has billions of users. I saw some A/B testing for ad engagement that drove UI decision making, but it was always short-term and related to search -- like, "we updated the model today, and users click on the ad 1% more often in the treatment group". FWIW I was pretty much at the bottom of the totem pole so if there was some nefarious plot to provide crappy UIs I wouldn't've been in the loop anyway.