I often feel the same, so I will try to give a serious answer: Most web design today is driven by branding. Everyone seems to feel like they have to be express

I often feel the same, so I will try to give a serious answer: Most web design today is driven by branding. Everyone seems to feel like they have to be express their uniqueness. This is awful and can widely be regarded as a bad move. I fully agree with you on that front. On the other hand, the default browser styles are bad in their own way. Look at http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/ http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/ for details. In practice, some degree of web design is necessary. Also, you can create art and beauty on a computer. A well designed website can elevate the experience, just like a well designed book or chair. Finally, HTML is limited in what it can do. JavaScript, CSS, and WAI-ARIA together form the low-level technologies to extend the web with new functionality. See https://extensiblewebmanifesto.org/ https://extensiblewebmanifesto.org/ for details. In summary, I would say that most web design is useless, but not all of it.