system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why has "clean" web design (white background, large fonts) became so popular?

I think Medium was the first place where I saw it. Recently many websites (even, at least partially, Forbes or The Economist) have adopted it. But I'm not sure where's the appeal. The fonts seem to be too large, which makes reading harder and slower. It also requires constant scrolling. 

Where has this trend come from and why is it spreading?
gpt
Several reasons.

**It's practical.** Clean design is generally about removing unnecessary elements that distract from the primary content on the page. It's like a novel, where you wouldn't want little images and extra information crowding the page and stealing your attention away from the story you're reading. The idea is that users should be able to quickly and easily see the important information. This is part of why certain text appears so large -- to draw your attention to really important things like article titles. Having significantly less visual noise also makes it easier for web pages to be built in such a way that one version can display and size correctly depending on which device it is being viewed on. (For example, having blocks of text and images shrink to fit within smaller smart phone screens.)

**It's technically light-weight.** In general, using a simple design style means that each page is smaller in terms of file size, the amount of data displayed on the page, etc. This means that less information has to be transmitted to devices like phones and iPads that are viewing the site. Historically, this was beneficial as wireless connections, phones and tablets were not as fast, and mobile devices did not have as much memory as normal computers. Obviously this is less of an issue nowadays, (with many people owning phones that are faster than their aging computers). Still however, less data to transmit means that the page will generally load faster.

**It's currently stylish.** Clean interfaces generally aim for several positive visual ideals: sophistication, sleekness, and simplicity. Partially thanks to companies like Apple, this sparse style is currently associated with being modern and hip. This will change over time, as styles regularly do. Eventually, it will become considered stale and empty and boring. But the previous two points will still remain valid.