There are a few things to note here. First, whitespace makes things look _expensive_, more luxurious (look at all that material we surround our content with).

There are a few things to note here. First, whitespace makes things look _expensive_, more luxurious (look at all that material we surround our content with). This comes from print, and as screens have gotten bigger (and resolutions have gotten finer) this trend has entered screen design too. Second is the perennial "grandma argument" - i.e. if your website or software or whatnot is not built in such a way that "a grandma could figure it out" it gets proclaimed "high barrier" and folks say that "nobody will ever take time to learn how this works". This often results in bikeshedding over features which are absolutely clear to anyone who has ever used a computer, are useful - but if the product design is ruled by a person driven purely by aesthetics - the features get killed. The issue though is that most software is useful exactly because it does not place a single button called "Do Thing Nao" in the middle of the screen, but actually tries to be a tool.