Steve indirectly had a hand in this, by emphasizing the humanities. That, unfortunately, backfired as a sort of positive feedback loop.
Someone hired a few underemployed artists onto the team, and the artists invited all their friends and soon took over the department.
People that in an alternate timeline would be smoking weed whilst sculpting wood in a derelict loft somewhere are now the lead designers, using our software as the canvas of a perpetual avant-garde art piece.
They also need to look productive to justify their jobs, so the need to change things is constant.
That's why in 2026 you could have a PhD in CS and still need to watch a YouTube video to learn how to change the volume.
Can anyone name a single substantive UI improvement in the last 20 years? They're simply hiding or moving stuff around at this point while no one has even touched accessibility.