[rgoulter]

> I never understood this craze of removing keys.

There are (roughly) two families of "smaller keyboards".

Those with a big spacebar, and those with multiple thumbkeys.

Big-spacebar-small-keyboards are like laptop keyboards.

Whereas, for other kinds of small keyboards (such as the moonlander or planck) which provide thumbkeys, I'd say the emphasis is more about "bringing the full functionality of the keyboard to within easy reach of the hands" rather than "remove keys for whatever reason".

On traditional keyboards, the thumbs only get to use 1 key. A big spacebar is such an odd and inefficient use of keyboard real estate.

Whereas, with 2-3 keys each, the thumbs can be put to good use. e.g. It's much more comfortable to press backspace with the thumb, than to move your hand (or reach with the pinky finger).