Why It's Fashionable To Hate Friends Now
1. Ross Is Trash
Now, this one's not entirely unjustified. Ross is genuinely a deeply flawed character. He cheats on Rachel (sort of, anyway), he forgets that his son exists, he assaults an old man, he forgets his son exists, he treats Mona and Julie horribly, he treats his sister horribly, he dates a student, he remains married to Rachel against her will... The list goes on and on.
The new generation of Friends watchers are now fixated on the Ross Is Trash mantra, and there's a lot to back it up. But he was also a complex character and one of the show's most entertaining - mostly because they made him such a fool.
The problem with the Ross-bashing mentality is that it misses the point that ALL of the characters in the show are supposed to be flawed. They're all supposed to be grotesques who you wouldn't necessarily like - they were clowns to entertain us until they got to the ends of their arcs. That's why Phoebe became so boring by the end - she settled down. Same with Chandler and Monica. And that's why Joey was most boring when he was a successful actor.
They weren't good to watch when they were good, and it just so happened that Ross ended up being the last character to be resolved. So of course you'd think he was trash. That doesn't mean he stayed trash, though.
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In short, Friends does not deserve to be hated outright. It was a problematic show at times, in hindsight, but it was also a touchstone moment for TV and for sitcoms and though there is a generation of new watchers now who will never experience it the same way, the fact that it was so beloved despite its issues says something.
And equally, it's not at all wrong for even the most die-hard fans to acknolwedge those issues and to want better. You just have to hope that when it returns - and of course it will somehow and somewhen - it knows to address them.