The idea that design should be invisible isn't a new phenomenon. As far as I know, one of the earliest mentions of the idea was by Beatrice Warde in her essay The Crystal Goblet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crystal_Goblet). No UI just made the mistake of taking a poor, overloaded name for their movement. Invisible Design would have been a better one that doesn't already impose a solution.
The argument for interface culture seems really misguided though. Since when should a culture around a poor design implementation require that we don't try and improve it's design? I'd argue that we already have said, "the best TV is no TV". Flat screen TVs are exactly this, we're moving away from the huge clunky things we used to have. I'm sure some were disappointed when their TVs lost their knobs and dials, they were part of the culture, but now no one thinks twice about it.
I don't think reducing a UI inherently means making the mental model harder to understand.
The argument for interface culture seems really misguided though. Since when should a culture around a poor design implementation require that we don't try and improve it's design? I'd argue that we already have said, "the best TV is no TV". Flat screen TVs are exactly this, we're moving away from the huge clunky things we used to have. I'm sure some were disappointed when their TVs lost their knobs and dials, they were part of the culture, but now no one thinks twice about it.
I don't think reducing a UI inherently means making the mental model harder to understand.