I have the same reaction, Moshe. I kept switching back to Classic Google Groups and providing detailed feedback as to why the "improved" interface was less functional in almost every way (the ONLY improvement I can see is that the posts in a thread are no longer paginated, but since they open up at the top of a thread without regard to which posts have been read, I have to scroll all the way down to see the unread ones--an extra step). But now I can't seem to switch back. I don't want to go use another interface (I've tried several) but I may have to. The way my PC display is configured, even replying to a post can be more difficult, although some of the more bizarre behavior seems to be fixed this morning.

I've worked in IT for over 20 years and have seen this many times. Young UX/UI designers want to "improve" the user experience and show off their design chops so they add white space, shrink fonts, introduce arcane icons with no text or rollovers, hide menus and other navigation elements, "declutter", and do other things to make the page look cleaner and sexier but make it harder to use. At a minimum, it becomes a learned interface, less intuitive than before. At worst (as is true here), it's less functional, more awkward to use, provides less information, adds clicks, etc. The most annoying strategy is when it's intentional, e.g., Snapchat, where users take pride in knowing the secrets of how to use the app to which only their friends and other cognoscenti are privy.

On rare occasions, I've seen Google scramble to back down. Years ago they eliminated the scroll bar and, separately, the Google Advanced Search page (which had been my home page for years). In both cases, outcry from thousands of users forced them to retreat (although with the scroll bar, because they had already deployed the code--with other changes--it took them a while to add back the functionality they had removed because they had to go through the same release process as they would for a change). But those are exceptions. I don't even know what their strategy is for Google Groups to know whether forcing people off the site who ONLY read one or two Usenet groups is what they want.

Despite the cluelessness of many young designers (who are sometimes more concerned with launching cool new designs that they can add to their portfolios than they are with designing user-friendly pages), the folks at Google aren't stupid. They're just arrogant. In this case, they've ignored the feedback so I suspect I'll do what I usually do when a company insists that I do business their way or no way and say goodbye.

Chip Bearden
JB