I've noticed a similar thing on some web pages. For example BBC news where the link for a story is its whole tile/rectangle area, the obvious link text, any pic

I've noticed a similar thing on some web pages. For example BBC news where the link for a story is its whole tile/rectangle area, the obvious link text, any picture, and a large amount of white space. It's only relatively thin gaps between tiles that are inert background to click on. I can see this making sense for a touch-first design and I can appreciate that focus for BBC news website, however focusing back on software like gnome it seems that similar aims crept in trying to make it serve multiple input methods at the same time and how you could have variations on the UI for touch or mouse (and you could also make assumptions about the screen and viewing setup and what's appropriate)