so, this isn't kennedy-specific, but from a mostly outsider's perspective (I worked at google for a long long time, but not on any of this stuff), I think it's motive. apple sells hardware to users & google sells eyeballs to advertisers.
the most benign explanation for google's constant UI redesign is that it is, as the GP said, some "guy on blogger team who's role is to make up bullshit OKRs and get promotions". as a user of these products, that pointless churn is incredibly frustrating.
The less benign explanation is that it's about increasing my eyeball time for advertisers. as a human being, that's incredibly infuriating; especially when the "redesign" doesn't offer me anything in return (I'm looking at you google music / youtube music)
Isn't every redesign of a UI about increasing the preference for people to use the app? This kind of explanation is like saying "Apple only improves their UI because they want to make more money", implying that changes to UI should only ever be down for purely altruistic reasons.
There are three things Google could have done with Blogger:
1) destaff the team maintaining it and let it die. Result: people complaining Google killed yet another project
2) staff the team and give them some freedom to actually do interesting work instead, instead of hiring someone to baby sit a closet of frozen servers. Result: "Who moved my cheese?"
3) Hire a babysitter, and charge a fee for running a blog or divest it to someone who wants to run it. Result: "Bait and switch! Google offered a free product for years and years, and now they want to charge money for it!"
In any of the scenarios, people will be upset Let's face it, a lot of us through Blogger was dead, like Tumblr, a distant memory. The fact that there's engineers actively working on it should give those depending on it some comfort, vs a baby-sitter project where it could die at any moment once the last team member leaves for greener pastures.
Blogger was launched in 1999, it's 20+ years ago now. Are people really asking a company not to change the UI and make large changes to something 20 years old?
Keeping it running means somebody does attend to it, if only for maintenance. There's no reason why it should die in that case. I'd argue that by definition, something doesn't die if you keep it running.
Unless you mean "it dies" in some other, more unusual sense?
the most benign explanation for google's constant UI redesign is that it is, as the GP said, some "guy on blogger team who's role is to make up bullshit OKRs and get promotions". as a user of these products, that pointless churn is incredibly frustrating.
The less benign explanation is that it's about increasing my eyeball time for advertisers. as a human being, that's incredibly infuriating; especially when the "redesign" doesn't offer me anything in return (I'm looking at you google music / youtube music)