Websites aren't OS's, but the principle is the same. After years of staying fixed on a specific website design and improving and refining it over the years, ESPN has completely redesigned their website.
I think what you've described is part of a general trend of placing fancy over function. It doesn't offer anything of real value, but the cost in terms of usability, bandwidth, and learning curve is high.
Let's say you google how to roast a chicken. A website titled "How to Roast a Chicken in Six Easy Steps" in the past would have delivered a scrollable page with each step listed under a bold heading. Now that same website is more likely to have a little widget that runs on some ridiculous coding and offers a little picture with each step written below it, navigable only by clicking arrows on either side of the picture that require a bazillion different javascripts enabled. And when you are just thinking the whole process couldn't get any worse, you discover the damn thing isn't easily printable for setting on the kitchen counter where you actually need the instructions.
Then you realize what is really meant by 'pretty': it's just a shortened way of saying 'pretty useless'.
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