Why does everything have to be described as "beautiful"? Yes, it looks nice. It's not fucking Beethoven, it's a website that appears to do a damn fine job of managing RSS feeds. Yet every damn day we see another HN front-page article about such-and-such a "beautiful" web-app.
Edit: also, in this instance, a good chunk of the beautiful design seems to have been lifted from Google's style, from the icon style to the way they put a little red bar next to the current selection
It's a good way to say, "Hey, not only did I develop this cool thing, I designed this cool thing."
Also, sometimes design is a focal point. All things being equal, I will choose the prettier option. I might even be persuaded to pay money for a prettier option if it functions just as well as the ugly open source option.
While i agree that beautiful does come in no small part from the "mechanics of how things work" there's NO WAY TO KNOW that you've done that from the site. It's a static screenshot. To be honest the screenshot's a bit... simple and plain. Not terribly notable. Maybe it is a "beautiful" experience to use it, but I've got no way of knowing that without signing up for it. What's my incentive here? Why should I bother with yours when all i see is a simple screenshot with NO indication of ANY notable functionality or mechanics?
These "beautiful" labels are also a little hard to take since they always seem to come from the creator of the darned thing, a source that's a bit biased.
Edit: also, in this instance, a good chunk of the beautiful design seems to have been lifted from Google's style, from the icon style to the way they put a little red bar next to the current selection