Why are some of the ugliest sites on the Web also the most popular?

Simple on any screen. Links are obvious. Actions are obvious. Loads quickly on slow connections. Forward/back loads are quick. I don't have time or interest on burning cellular data on bloated websites that take lots of scrolling to view information.

Plus, users who were users pre-web understand and appreciate simple design. We don't need buttons to understand where to click.

My design preferences seem to be diametrically opposed to whatever is the contemporary sensibility, then. I don't like the modern, padded, grey-rather-than-jet-black text style at all. High information density is a feature, not a bug. If I designed a site, it'd probably look something like HN, assuming I styled it at all.

A lot of websites now seem to be designed by a "vertical stack of big blocks" model, probably because the need to support mobile resolutions makes any multi-column design (for navigation purposes, etc.) near-unworkable. But despite the idea of "responsive design", and that websites should adapt to the screen, there's been a very noticable degradation in design in this regard from the perspective of someone who always uses a desktop browser. Either the tools available for responsive design (media queries, etc.) are insufficient, or little effort is now expended on offering a superior experience on desktop. So we get the 'stack of blocks' design. Use of fonts which are rather oversized is also common.

Don't seem that puzzling to me. If a site is very valuable to its users then they probably don't care too much what it looks like. And I suspect that teams working on producing something extremely valuable or useful probably put its appearance pretty far down the to-do list.

Looks only matter for vary small amount of time after that its all about "does it get the job done".

ITS ALL ABOUT CONTENT