One of the most frustrating things about HN for me these days is going into the comments to read more about the content of an article, and instead being bombarded by people nitpicking the design of it.

Usually that effect is to show that the particular edge it’s applied to has been cropped.

It's fine for me.

A shell is not something from the future, no need for fancy graphics.

It also has logical semantic meaning:

staright line = end if the content

"torn" line = content is "cut off"

Probably to indicate that the screenshot was cropped to only show part of the viewport.

I have no idea how a company so large can have such poor design. The new management web interface looks like a hastily made bootstrap theme. My only explanation is that Bezos himself chooses the designs and nobody can object.

Jeff Barr has used the torn paper effect on screenshots for the AWS blog for many years. It's not a one-off for this article. You can see it on basically every blog post he has made for a decade.

Probably as an affordance to communicate that you cannot click/interact with the screenshot!? ::shrug::

They didn't use transparency either, so it looks extra good in dark mode ;)

It's a blog post, not a PR piece. The only issue I take with it is in the first screenshot, where it says to 'click the CloudShell icon' and then presents you a screenshot that doesn't actually highlight what and where the icon is. You just have to already know that '>_' is some sort of hacker parlance for a shell.

It's just a picture of the corner of the page.

AWS has such obvious contempt for the design profession that no sane designer would choose to work there.

Maybe it is a good look with purple hair?