something tells me - i dont know, call it a hunch...that this is likely intentional. You know how in malls, the walkways (which arent stores) seem really shitty and make people irritated...well, thats intentional, (its the Gruen transfer)...how do you do this on a device? probably by making interacting with the device passively irritating as all fuck...read the first paragraph in that link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gruen_transfer

It's an interesting idea actually, there's maybe no way to say for certain but I'm inclined to invoke Hanlon's Razor here and suggest that it's down to incompetence rather than malice.

However that effect you linked is really fascinating! I particularly liked the reaction of Gruen to this: "I refuse to pay alimony for those bastard developments."

Yeah - i am arm chair theorising 100%....agree about Hanlon's Razor...since i was introduced to that idea - i have thought of it alot - but tbh for a company the size of google, i find it really difficult to be that charitable. It's just too convenient for a dealer of ads not to use any trick in the book to further grump users to engage with more ads, which...yep...pays them.

Yeah fair enough, I totally understand. Maybe I just want the world to be less malicious and more chill than it is :-)

Yeah, you'd expect the tech giants to accumulate experience, but they seem to be the prime victims (and perpetrators) of the career progression treadmill that's keeping the industry forever stuck at junior level - i.e. it's the junior SEs that do actual work; as soon as they become barely competent at their jobs, they get promoted and told to spend time "communicating with stakeholders" and teaching the next batch of juniors.

Yeah or even to have a bit of pride. Like “this is Google, we can’t release this weird inconsistent UI”