Why is website design so awful today generally?

The article and a lot of the commenters seem to be missing one important fact: far more people are browsing the internet on mobile devices these days, than on laptops or desktop machines. Therefore, prioritising mobile friendly design makes sense.

That said, I agree with the author's broader points. Although my pet hates are not the same as his and in fact some are mirror opposites:

FONT SIZE -The author complains about white space and large text. But for me the opposite is far worse. I do a lot of my web browsing on mobile and I am constantly infuriated by websites on which the text is literally too small for me to read on my phone and 7" tablet. If it wasn't for Yandex Browser's 'text reflow' function, much of the web would be unreadable for me on mobile, without a lot of zooming and incredibly annoying horizontal scrolling.

MODAL OVERLAYS, CAPTCHAS, COOKIE DIALOGUES --can there be anything more infuriating than the constant barrage of modal overlays, captchas and cookie consent forms, that plague almost every website? The annoyance of Captchas and Cookie Dialogues is pretty universal but, in my opinion, the full screen modal dialogues are even worse. You know, the ones that suddenly cover what you're reading with some 'call to action' such as "subscribe to our newsletter!'

Quite often, given the fact that, as mentioned in the article, you have to scroll past a load of junk to even get to the content on a modern webpage and that the modals are triggered after you start scrolling, I get a full screen modal dialogue shoved in my face, inviting me to subscribe to the site's newsletter, before I've read a single word of the site content!

Some web developers really need to read up on usability and think a bit harder about not pissing off visitors, instead of obsessing about the newest, flashiest way of grabbing their attention.

Hint: don't try aggressive, in-your-face upselling, while the customer is still hesitating on your doorstep, wondering whether to come in.

I can't view websites without an ad blocker. It's like after every sentence there is an ad. And the ads don't even blend in it's some crazy shaking video.

What also sucks is the aggregation... Can't deny that's where people are but makes me wonder is there a point to making your own website other than owning the content.

I also don't like most of the websites design, many time I have to fix it in custom CSS.

I recommend Gemini: https://gemini.circumlunar.space/

It's because most websites now are designed by marketers instead of actual web designers.