I refer you to the article I wrote about optimizing data-ink ratio (rather than maximizing it as many people believe the intent to be): https://scienceux.org/articles/data-ink-ideal-vs-minimal

Many principles and concepts are based on ideal scenarios when we know that realistically there are different contexts and situations when you also need to break the rule. I am not suggesting that we should cut everything out, but rather that we try to understand good graph design rules and what effects it has on the data-ink ratio. You'll find that some best practices actually increase the data-ink ratio, while others reduce it.