I agree with you here. I also believe that a lot of the current design trends in new spaces these days has this same origin. Light bulbs hanging by a cord, reclaimed wood walls and ceilings, keeping raw pipes, wires exposed etc. It does look kind of cool, but the genesis was small businesses and spaces just trying to save money.
I've worked in an office like that; they had the audacity to make us work in an office with a broken concrete floor (with electrical guide pipes showing), open ceiling with the aircon dripping on my desk, and plywood walls, and call it "industrial design". At least be honest and say it's a temporary design because the whole floor will be repurposed within two years.
As a counterpoint though, another office also went for industrial design, but they did it stylishly - just one visible aircon pipe, and instead of raw concrete, they sprayed it with a kind of foam or fiber that absorbs a lot of sound, in a somewhat dark color. That office has a beer tap, too.
