It's because the ranges of distributions you sample from don't necessarily line up nicely with our number systems. For example, if you're measuring the distance

It's because the ranges of distributions you sample from don't necessarily line up nicely with our number systems. For example, if you're measuring the distance between you and nearby stars in light years does it seem likely that the distances fit in the range of 0-99.99 light years perfectly? No, it's far more likely to overflow into 100s or even 200s of light years. Hopefully that gives you an intuitive sense why Benford's law gives a highest probability for 1 as the leading number but 2 is the next most common and so on. You can also see the weaker application by the same argument to the following digits.