I'm wondering if it is the actual redesign that killed those websites (excluding malicious intentions and dark patterns), or was it the redesign itself a response to negative trends in usage?
If it's for the customers, I don't see any reason to think it would. I would even expect it to be reverted if hated.
If it's for the devs (so they can do busy work and get a promotion), I think it is a sign of weak leadership and a harbinger of eventual doom, these are generally hated but ultimately tolerated.
If it's for the shareholders, I think these are the redesigns the really kill websites.
Cory Doctrow talks about this here: https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys
"enshittification" is the name for this concept that results in this behavior that we see.
> Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.
- The bigger the change is the harder it is to effectively migrate dependant users/systems/apps
- The bigger the scope is the harder it is to maintain feature parity with the old version through the development window
- The less researched the rationale for the change to users/systems/apps is the more likelihood it will cause them problems
- If you mess up the implementation you are doomed
Hence the best practice to introduce incremental well researched changes to actively used systems in a systematic way.
With a web redesign, there is uncertainty in the way users will respond of course. But tbh ive seen APis with far more unpredictable responses :P
But I've also seen examples where the redesign goes well, usually because it maintains the general 'feel' of the original while making it look more modern/easy to use.