alt Hacker NewsI've seen some comments about how Times New Roman was replaced with something else to improve readability by many.
There's an irony: the _Times_ (of London) commissioned it in 1932 to improve the readability of its newspaper, which previously used a Didone/Modern style typeface.
I like Times New Roman and I find Calibri, a rounded-corner sans serif, to be an absolute abomination of milquetoast typography.
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There's no irony in that: different medium.
The Dutch dev of Calibri commented on the history [1].
He makes a couple of good points, nuances. The main one I liked is related to your premise: it was that the Times New Roman font was optimized for printing newspapers whereas his successor was meant for computer screens.
Ultimately, IMO this is just bullying people with bad eyesight and dyslexia (and said bullying I can only regard as hatred towards minorities which reminds me of a different era). My father had MS and due to that bad eyesight. He had special glasses with a special lens to read. Of course any font change has a learning curve, but to me this just hits home as I've seen him struggle to read.
As others have said, Times New Roman was specifically designed for newspapers:
* condensed glyph widths, for ease of setting in narrow columns
* high x-heights and short ascenders and descenders, so lines can be set tighter and more text thus fitted on the page
* robust forms and serifs to allow for the tendency of newsprint to absorb and spread ink
These features don't necessarily translate to improved readability in other contexts.
Times New Roman was designed for a time when printing quality was not that good. With 1080p screen nowadays, that barrier is removed, so optimization of readability has different constraints.
I found that Calibri looks better than TNR on a low dpi screen. The serifs just make the letters look jagged.
It may look better but it's harder to read basically across the board for anyone with difficulty distinguishing letters. Sans serif fonts are easier for people with dyslexia without going all the way to a dyslexia specific font. They're also generally far better for people with all sorts of poor vision.
It really comes down to the fact that it's better to be functional, forms don't need to /look/ good they need to work well. For aesthetic things we can still use the pretty fonts.