> When have you seen a book or mag with 1/3 margins?
Magazines almost always have their text in thin columns, because long lines are difficult to follow. Books are also typically 1/3th the width of a typical computer screen for the same reason.
Long lines aren't that difficult to follow. And for those who find it so, they can just resize their browser window. Meanwhile I have to go mess with the dev console on half the sites I visit these days because they insist on having text in a 2-inch wide column. That is a way worse problem.
Columns work if you can see all of the column - screens are wide and short, books/mags are thin and deep.
A physical book has a ratio of exactly the opposite of your laptop. Amazon realised this quite quickly and you will note that their readers have a book shape.
Look at this web site (HN) which is used by some of the most vociferous nerds ever (including you and me) and tell me I am talking bollocks! Note the styles, layout, colours in use.
How far removed from white on black text, 1/3 screen width and teenager bedroom looks are we away from?
> Look at this web site (HN) which is used by some of the most vociferous nerds ever (including you and me) and tell me I am talking bollocks! Note the styles, layout, colours in use.
I use HN in a half window, so the text is roughly the same width as the website here.
Magazines almost always have their text in thin columns, because long lines are difficult to follow. Books are also typically 1/3th the width of a typical computer screen for the same reason.