This has become a tendency in many web sites from some time now. I dislike it too, it's a pain in the ass. I sometimes have to select some text with the mouse s

This has become a tendency in many web sites from some time now. I dislike it too, it's a pain in the ass. I sometimes have to select some text with the mouse so that it goes into reverse video so that I can read it easier. (Downvoted HN comments are a good example, but in the case of HN, low contrast is not the norm, except for comment headers.) Not sure what's the exact reason for this trend. Some ideas: - someone started it off, maybe a so-called high-profile designer, and others blindly copied it. [1] Designer doesn't necessarily mean an individual one. It could be for example Twitter Bootstrap that was copied, since I know that a lot of web sites use it. [1] Blind copying (without regard to appropriateness) is a common trend in some people since probably the start of mankind. Not sure much can done about it. People have to learn for themselves that they need to think for themselves. - the monitors of the people creating these low-contrast sites may be very high resolution and/or high brightness, so the low-contrast still is readable to them. - could be it is an example of what I call (just made up the term) the C++ syndrome, where newbie C++ developers use C++ language features liberally and where not required, or where they may not make sense, just because they can do it, or sometimes just to get to apply it and learn about it (which should not be allowed by any good project managers in production software, just tell them to play in a sandbox they create). Though I called it the C++ syndrome, it is equally visible in other languages and stacks.