What you're saying is absolutely correct. I actually had to use Bing Maps today to look up some directions because the new version of Google Maps was pretty much unusable.
As for why UX disasters like this can happen, I think it generally comes down to one thing these days: "hipsters".
Those of us who've been in industry for a long time have no doubt seen this happen before. A relatively well-established product has a usable UI. It isn't perfect, and maybe even looks "dated" in some ways, but it generally works and is understood by its existing users.
So-called "hipsters" (that is, people who have an uncompromising view that they're talented "designers" or "UI experts", with a massive ego to back this up, and a fixation on being "trendy") get involved at some point. These people are often relatively young, often have limited experience, and are usually more focused on making designs look "pretty" and "modern" rather than usable.
Needing to create work for themselves, these hipsters, coupled with managers who need to appear to be leading something seen as "productive", start on a UI redesign. Often this is done without the involvement or insight offered by the existing developers of the product, nor any of the product's users. Changes are made purely to look "better", with limited to no consideration of how it'll impact the usability of the product.
The end result is a total cock-up like this, or like the poor UI of Chrome (and the imitations of it by Firefox, Opera and IE), or a project-killing release like GNOME 3, or an abysmal failure like Windows 8.
UIs were generally far more usable in the 1980s, 1990s, and the first half of the 2000s, before "hipsters" got involved with design. What we see today is a total jumble of inconsistent and incoherent UI design, where usability and efficiency are considered significantly less important than "looking trendy".
As for why UX disasters like this can happen, I think it generally comes down to one thing these days: "hipsters".
Those of us who've been in industry for a long time have no doubt seen this happen before. A relatively well-established product has a usable UI. It isn't perfect, and maybe even looks "dated" in some ways, but it generally works and is understood by its existing users.
So-called "hipsters" (that is, people who have an uncompromising view that they're talented "designers" or "UI experts", with a massive ego to back this up, and a fixation on being "trendy") get involved at some point. These people are often relatively young, often have limited experience, and are usually more focused on making designs look "pretty" and "modern" rather than usable.
Needing to create work for themselves, these hipsters, coupled with managers who need to appear to be leading something seen as "productive", start on a UI redesign. Often this is done without the involvement or insight offered by the existing developers of the product, nor any of the product's users. Changes are made purely to look "better", with limited to no consideration of how it'll impact the usability of the product.
The end result is a total cock-up like this, or like the poor UI of Chrome (and the imitations of it by Firefox, Opera and IE), or a project-killing release like GNOME 3, or an abysmal failure like Windows 8.
UIs were generally far more usable in the 1980s, 1990s, and the first half of the 2000s, before "hipsters" got involved with design. What we see today is a total jumble of inconsistent and incoherent UI design, where usability and efficiency are considered significantly less important than "looking trendy".