> "Are Americans illiterate or just easily confused? ;)" Joking aside, I'd argue the main reason for the rise of that style of minimalistic website was respons

> "Are Americans illiterate or just easily confused? ;)" Joking aside, I'd argue the main reason for the rise of that style of minimalistic website was responsive design. It's much easier to design a website to be responsive if the content is sparsely laid out to begin with. There was a mobile-first trend in web design, and I believe the type of layout you're referring to was the result. Perhaps we'll find better ways of handling responsive design in the future (better in the sense of making sites that are able to better tailor themselves to available resources without a notable increase in code).