In practice, using UIs that a corporate design department or product manager would never approve today is an implicit fashion-signal.

Not wanting to be disrespectful or anything, but I just don't get how people can spend so much time caring about UI styling.

I get the UX idea: graphical environments have evolved to become more ergonomic and more intuitive. But at some point, when it "just works", I don't get the point of spending so much energy into styling it.

People don't generally get excited about door handles, do they? There are a few kinds of door handles that we know work, and we're fine with them. Maybe they vary a bit between the countries, sure. But people don't tune their door handles.

Why do people tune their OS?

I get that Apple may spend a ton of resources into developing liquid glass, which uses more compute and therefore forces people to buy newer devices. But that's not the same as a Gen Z person spending (wasting?) time tuning their OS, is it? Or do they consider it like art? Like does tuning your OS count the same as painting or playing an instrument?

I am genuinely wondering. I actually spent time reading this whole article.