When web fonts came on the scene, I was enthusiastic to finally see headlines rendered as images, or even worse, those sIFR Flash headlines, disappear.
But now people are using custom fonts even for body copy, and with this whitespace problem, it's just as bad.
Webdesigners will always find new ways to sacrifice usability.
Not currently. Many custom fonts look atrocious in the 10-14pt range in Chrome on Windows due to aliasing issues, and that's such a large slice of any particular market that you can't really do that.
It would be nice to get that sorted out, but for the time being, you have to be very careful about your body fonts.
>Shouldn't technology be bending to our will? Not our will to technology?
It has nothing to do with technology, it is about user experience. Pushing a crappy font on me because you think it is pretty does two things. It makes you feel good about yourself, and makes it harder for me to read your site. This is the same narcissistic designer syndrome that gave use flash intros back in the day.
Erm... I think you are just not a designer yourself and don't understand the difference custom fonts can make to the 'readability' and overall feel of a website.
Using custom fonts for headlines and then a 'helvetica' variant to mix in on copy only gets you so far.
I'm not a designer, nor a narcissist, but I've seen body copy fonts used well.
But now people are using custom fonts even for body copy, and with this whitespace problem, it's just as bad.
Webdesigners will always find new ways to sacrifice usability.