More so than that, looking at website design from a monetary perspective: It's fast, cheap, and easy.
I'm afraid this is probably the main reason flat design caught on. It's achievable by developers with little design background, and can be implemented with little more than a bit of boilerplate from some CSS framework for a web site or the equivalent in a UI builder for an app. No need to hire anyone with digital artwork skills or experience designing more complicated UIs, and no need to prepare and serve the associated assets as part of your site/app.
Unfortunately, from a usability and accessibility point of view, current trends in design and typography are still objectively awful in various ways, and from a brand distinctiveness point of view, it's still a severely limited style to work within. There's an (actually quite reasonable) argument that a lot of designers and marketers who promote branding aren't generating particularly good returns until you get to large, well established, well known businesses anyway, but the usability and accessibility flaws hurt everyone.
I'm afraid this is probably the main reason flat design caught on. It's achievable by developers with little design background, and can be implemented with little more than a bit of boilerplate from some CSS framework for a web site or the equivalent in a UI builder for an app. No need to hire anyone with digital artwork skills or experience designing more complicated UIs, and no need to prepare and serve the associated assets as part of your site/app.
Unfortunately, from a usability and accessibility point of view, current trends in design and typography are still objectively awful in various ways, and from a brand distinctiveness point of view, it's still a severely limited style to work within. There's an (actually quite reasonable) argument that a lot of designers and marketers who promote branding aren't generating particularly good returns until you get to large, well established, well known businesses anyway, but the usability and accessibility flaws hurt everyone.