I've seen this with mobile phones in the 90's-2000's. Until Apple came up with the iPhone designed for the end users, the phones' buyers were the networks, not the end users.
The same goes for companies like LinkedIn - they are now driven by recruiters and not the end users. Thus the idiotic interface and functionality changes that basically makes it unusable [to the most of the users].
Apple's iPhone also brought new UI/UX ideas and people that grow up with these phones/desktops now and judge everything by that standard vs. what was considered "working" way back when. Android and Microsoft helped too. This industry shifts fast, so it's really no surprise people come to hate the older stuff by looks alone.
As someone who wrote code for two mobile handsets for two different companies in the referenced time frame, I would say there was a noticeable lack of innovation in the handset business.
Except, perhaps, in Japan - where mobile handsets were way ahead in terms of design and features as compared with the U.S.
Which, I think, can also be explained by the fact that the handsets in Japan were marketed to the end users as opposed to the U.S. where the buyers were the network operators.
Not sure I agree. There was a lot of innovation on smartphones before the iPhone, they were just not as visionary as the iPhone was. Look up the Nokia N-Gage as an example
The same goes for companies like LinkedIn - they are now driven by recruiters and not the end users. Thus the idiotic interface and functionality changes that basically makes it unusable [to the most of the users].