The funny thing is that I think it's in part motivated by the desire for minimalism. But instead of minimising the form they have minimised the function!
The harder it is to read, the longer you'll spend reading it. And time spent on page is a really common vanity metric.
Or.. the harder it is to read, the more unlikely I am to read it. And will instead leave the page and find another source for the information if I care that much.