Yes this is also because these days monitor engineers optimize for peak brightness and totally neglect minimum brightness specs. Because 600 nits looks great on a spec sheet and it's just difficult to regulate (backlight) LEDs over a huge brightness range without affecting color accuracy or causing excessive flickering. Nobody looks at the minimum spec if it's even provided.

So what they tend to do is to have the low end of the brightness range way too high and often even use tricks like simply displaying a darker image (Rather than a darker backlight) which reduces color depth and accuracy even more.

I use my otherwise excellent LG 24UD58 with brightness at 0% during the day! So during the night it's way too bright.

You can accomplish this also by setting the contrast to a low value on screens where the brightness simply doesn't go that low. But some screens just incorporate this trick in the brightness control themselves. Also you can use software options of which dark mode is one. However all these methods (with the exception of dark mode!) result in screwed up color depth (and thus excessive banding also) and dynamic range.

I grew up with white on black displays but these days I prefer black on white because it's easier to read with eyes that have astigmatism. But I end up using dark mode at night anyway because otherwise my display brightness just isn't bearable.

What doesn't help is that I live in a hot country with no AC and during summer I usually live with the windows open at night and the lights off to avoid attracting bugs. So it's difficult. I really wish display builders would optimize for low brightness more.