The early 2000s was the golden era of web.

My $formative_years were the golden age of $thing

I'll just conclude this process by positing my contribution:

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Personally I don’t mind them and sometimes find them quite tasteful. Fortunately a lot respect ‘prefers-reduced-motion’ these days.

That's something I have on my backlog

I agree with you so much.

UI animations and needless "glitz" is inconsiderate of low-vision users, users who might have poor technical skills and who rely on UI consistency to accomplish tasks, users with low-spec hardware, users who are forced to use remote framebuffer protocols over low bandwidth connections, and of the environment (by way of increased processing power and electricity required).

What if the "glitz" was optional and low-vision or low technical users could have a browser setting to de-glitz their UX? That way everyone wins.

I wish this setting was better-resoected. On Windows PCs, at least. I do not find that Chrome or CrEdge behave significantly differently when my OS settings telegraph my desire for reduced motion.

Why stop there? Just make everything static everywhere. /s

Yeah. I don't know why people project their taste as the penultimate version of x.

The trend is there because the majority of humans obviously enjoys moving pixels. If you don't you just need to accept it.

Exactly. Not everything has to match everyone's personal taste, and that's totally fine.