It is hard to believe that companies with thousands of employees and vast design teams can still release products that feel awkward, confusing, or actively hostile to users. Yet it happens so often that poor UX has become almost expected from large, investor-driven organisations. This is not because they do not understand users, or because designers are not pushing for better outcomes. It is because investor pressure quietly sets the rules of the game, and UX rarely wins under those rules.
UX is slow in a system obsessed with speed
Good UX takes time. It involves research, testing, iteration, and the willingness to change course when something is not working. Investor pressure pushes in the opposite direction. Leadership is expected to show visible progress every quarter, sometimes every month.
Features become promises. Timelines harden early. Once something has been sold internally or externally, questioning it feels risky. UX research that suggests a rethink is no longer helpful, it is inconvenient. So teams are encouraged to polish what already exists instead of asking whether it should exist at all.
This is how products end up looking finished while still feeling wrong to use.
Investors fund certainty, not curiosity
UX depends on curiosity. It asks open questions and accepts that the answers might challenge assumptions. Investors, understandably, prefer certainty. They want forecasts, targets, and predictable growth stories.
In large companies, this creates a bias towards decisions that feel measurable and defensible in advance. A new feature with a clear revenue projection is easier to justify than investing in usability improvements whose impact will be spread across time and harder to attribute.
When UX teams are asked to prove value upfront, they are pushed into shallow optimisation. Tweak the button, adjust the copy, shorten the flow. Rarely are they given space to question the underlying experience or the business logic driving it.
Metrics flatten real user experience
Investor reporting relies heavily on metrics. Conversion rates, engagement, time on task, and revenue per user become proxies for user satisfaction. The problem is that these numbers often hide more than they reveal.
A checkout flow can convert well while still being stressful. An app can show high engagement because users are fighting it, not because they enjoy it. These nuances show up clearly in user research, but they disappear when reduced to charts and percentages.
When senior leaders are under pressure to reassure investors, they lean on metrics that look positive. UX insights that tell a more complex story are easy to dismiss as anecdotal or subjective, even when they point to real long-term risk.
Short term growth beats long term trust
Many UX improvements pay off slowly. Making a product more understandable, more honest, or more respectful of users builds trust over time. Investor pressure shortens that time horizon.
This is why large companies often tolerate dark patterns, cluttered interfaces, and aggressive prompts. They work in the short term. They lift numbers that matter in the next earnings call. The cost shows up later, as churn, brand fatigue, and public frustration, by which point responsibility has usually moved on.
From inside the organisation, this can be deeply demoralising. Designers and researchers see the damage coming but lack the leverage to prevent it. From the outside, users simply feel let down.
UX becomes decoration, not decision-making
In many triple A companies, UX is still treated as a delivery function rather than a strategic one. Design is brought in once the real decisions have been made. The question is no longer “should we do this?” but “how do we make this usable enough?”
This is not because leaders dislike UX. It is because investor pressure rewards confidence and decisiveness, not reflection. Changing direction late is framed as weakness, even when it is the responsible thing to do.
As a result, UX teams are asked to make peace with decisions that already compromise user needs. The work becomes about mitigation rather than advocacy.
The irony no one likes to admit
The irony is that investors ultimately benefit from good UX. Products that respect users tend to last longer. Trust reduces churn. Clarity reduces support costs. But these benefits are harder to package into short term narratives.
Until investor expectations shift, large companies will continue to struggle. Not because they do not care about users, but because the system they operate in makes it risky to prioritise them.
If you want better UX from big companies, the conversation has to move beyond design teams. It has to reach the people setting the incentives.
