I know it's not the convention, but I almost prefer it this way.

As someone who is self-taught (read: bad) on guitar, I spent literally years playing songs and suffering hand cramps before realizing that it takes a lot less pressure to fret the note closer to the fret.

All because I initially learned on tablature, and tablature typically shows it "wrong." (or I read it wrong for a long time -- feel free to blame me as much as you deem appropriate if you are fond of tabs)

You'd use a lined fretless bass this way, so it might have been a lined fretless guitar on that drawing!

Also, when you're pressing a fret, the pitch isn't coming from where you have your finger, but from the following fret which is making contact with the string. You can actually press the actual fret instead of the area between the fret and the one before it, and it should sound the same.

Now if the person that drew this knew that, I don't know.

This is from the era when guitar tab was not so ubiquitous…and I seem to remember a lot of the chords in pop song books printed with dots on the fret 45 years ago.

But it has been awhile.