That song is directly inspired by the Pepsi nonsense; the lyrics and backing video [1] have some direct quotes. Definitely the first thing that comes to mind each time a multi-billion company decides to change their logo and nobody likes it.
"Redesign Your Logo" was actually directly inspired by this exact brand redesign document, so your instinct is well-founded! Here's a transcript of the official Spirit Phone commentary track where Neil mentions it:
I feel the same way when my AWS console asked me to take survey on the EC2 console. I replied that I don't know which version I was meant to comment on since it changes every other week, and that I hope someone gets there performance bonus. My favorite question was "it feels modern". Like just leave the damn thing alone. Rather than worrying about useless small tweaks like a gradient, make sure the core features of the product work.
A whole lot of nooks and crannies of the AWS console are missing major convenience UI features, and usually when a console is redesigned it solves some reasonably major pain points.
there's a chasm of difference between fixing something that's broken and redesigning. the vast majority of people will not recognize a slight shift in hue of YT Red or YT Magenta gradient, and of those that do most won't care or have their lives made better or have an improved world from it.
After reading this, I feel like Arthur Dent having an unshakable sense of the color magenta level of snark.
What’s frustrating about tech industry is that they are probably getting paid multiple hundred thousands of dollars for this. Meanwhile I know of engineers at Google who are being managed out for “performance reasons” after being gaslighted into working 60+ hour work weeks.
Ultimately, average engineers are not a valuable resource they can be replaced within hours.
Even a few actual good design talents is going to have a much bigger impact on product success than an entire room of average engineers who’s skill tops out at react spaghetti.
I often think about how much more cost effective some companies' products would be if they would decide their product is "done" and that they accepted moving on into a cash cow type of phase.
There are major websites and web-based products like Craigslist, Wikipedia, and Steam that are handling insane Internet traffic with comparatively tiny levels of staffing when compared to YouTube or other giants.
I think those companies have accepted that there is no rush to make major innovations or changes and that hiring a large army of talent is far less cost effective than having teams that are small enough for everyone to know each other.
> There are major websites and web-based products like Craigslist, Wikipedia, and Steam that are handling insane Internet traffic with comparatively tiny levels of staffing
Hacker News. (Not "planet scale", but very impressive traffic/staffing ratio.)
There's a lot that goes that you don't notice, or that you easily forget about when you make a comment like this.
The introduction of a gradient and accent actually enables and makes it more natural to use more eye-catching effects on the platform. For example, when a YTer says "subscribe", a rainbow (IIRC) animation plays on the subscribe button. When you like or subscribe, an animation plays that now has more color to it. These animations feel satisfying and I dare say have measurable impact.
At the same time, the changes are so subtle that users hardly notice a change that they will have difficulty getting used to, and also already present components do not look out of place if they don't get refreshed.
That is what an experienced design team is paid to do. Complaining about seeing no drastic change here is like complaining about engineers making no user-facing effect when they refactor the underlying systems in preparation for future developments.
Maybe I’m too curmudgeonly for my own good, but that is quite underwhelming.