Every iteration is designed to improve some metric so somebody can get promoted. It doesn't matter if it ruins the overall experience, somebody's pushing a metric.
At this point I wonder if they just do this shit to see how many people subscribe to it so they can laugh at our expense.
As a contract software engineer that works with UI/UX designers across multiple industries and technologies, Google's suggested UI/UX is typically not used.
Do you mean Material Design?
It's getting a lot of hate, but for most apps, I actually really like it.
On my computer, I would hate it and I don't like the Gnome's simplified design for example, but on my phone, I want most of the apps to be simple utilities and Material Design seems to fit that very well.
Could you provide examples of where you feel its been dumbed down? Some areas such as the number of quick toggle buttons in the notifications, I agree. Other areas I feel like it's matured pretty well.