[ivank]

I'm guessing this happens when a designer has a bright LCD screen and thinks black on white has too much contrast.

[Filligree]

Which is often the case. Reading pure-black on pure-white hurts my eyes, so I often have to tune this knob the other way.

The actual problem is the lack of a brightness-controlled colorspace.

[ivank]

If it hurts your eyes, why not turn down the brightness and/or set up f.lux or redshift?

[Filligree]

I use f.lux, and it's great, but it doesn't affect brightness.

I don't want to turn down the brightness because then I've turned down the maximum brightness. My brightness tolerance runs on a curve - at one end, there's the brightness I'm okay with for the page as a whole; on the other end, there's the brightness that's okay for a single pixel, and they're nowhere near each other.

Logically, then, you should never use #FFF for large areas.

[ivank]

That's a good point, I guess I just gave up on that battle long ago.

(Well, not entirely. Games don't get my redshift color+brightness adjustments, and I used to be able to play video without the adjustments as well.)