I get the impression they don’t care if you enjoy using it, just that you are using it so they can continue to capture the data. They know most people aren’t going anywhere.
Well, if engagement is measured by time in the system, then a bad UI/UX can help that measure. If things move around inside an app frequently enough, I'm forced to spend more time using it because I on longer know how (Google Finance changed yet again a few weeks ago on me). If they hold an outsized share of the market + momentum from people having used their services for (now) 20+ years, then they can get away with this for a while.
This sounds cynical, but I wonder if this is actually the case to some extent. If you only look at engagement metrics, then those engagement metrics will be optimised, no matter how. Cobra effect and all that.
