alt Hacker NewsThis article has a weird progression.
It starts with the origins of TNR. Then it basically says it's a decent font with no significant problems. Then it talks about how it's popular because it's the default.
Then in the last paragraph it takes a hard stance that you should not use TNR unless required. It even implores the reader with a bold "please stop". It makes no arguments to support this stance and offers no alternatives.
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This is not a standalone article but a section from Butterick's book, "Typography for Lawyers", which is hosted in full on the website. The book is an opinionated style manual, and many alternatives are described in nearby sections.
It does seem like it is trying to force a trend without giving one solid reason.
Here's what is says about Times New Roman:
> Objectively, there’s nothing wrong with Times New Roman. It was designed for a newspaper, so it’s a bit narrower than most text fonts—especially the bold style. (Newspapers prefer narrow fonts because they fit more text per line.) The italic is mediocre. But those aren’t fatal flaws. Times New Roman is a workhorse font that’s been successful for a reason.
It says that there are problems. They're just not fatal.
> It even implores the reader with a bold "please stop". It makes no arguments to support this stance and offers no alternatives.
It says that there are plenty of alternatives (it specifically mentions Helvetica) that are better than Times New Roman. The argument is that Times New Roman is okay, but that it has flaws, and that there are easily available fonts that are superior. If someone is devoted enough to fonts to write a blog about them, then the existence of superior alternatives is enough of a reason to not use a font.
That's because it's not an article, it's a section of Butterick's book. (He also has a book at https://practicaltypography.com/ that isn't targeted at lawyers, and I think a lot of the content overlaps.)
I agree that he's a bit too mean to mainstream fonts, though.