This is extremely common worldwide. I've observed it in rural Nova Scotia, the Netherlands, and the Peruvian rainforest. I'm sure it happens elsewhere, but thos

This is extremely common worldwide. I've observed it in rural Nova Scotia, the Netherlands, and the Peruvian rainforest. I'm sure it happens elsewhere, but those are the places I have made note of it. I think the spiders have not so much figured it out as there is a selection bias. Spiders randomly make their nests. The spiders that randomly make a nest near a light source end up with a larger supply of food and grow large. In my current garden, the spiders that end up near a particular fern always grow the largest. My brother used to feed spiders that made their webs in a particular corner of a cabin as a reward for the entertainment they provided when they were building their webs. I have also walked into countless webs from large spiders in the forest over my life. Everything points to just randomized locations but being near lights generally being good for the lucky spiders that end up there. You will often see spider fights in such locations after a larger moth or other insect breaks the web of one spider and drops it into another spiders web.