Different learning styles and purposes. Even people I know who enjoy descriptive detailed writing when reading a novel like to-the-point list of facts/arguments when reading news and essays.

Others might also describe it as "getting paid by the word count".

You're high if you think that The Atlantic is some Demand Media/About.com/wikihow content spoo.

With few exceptions the long-form articles posted here are all normal articles padded with bullshit, not very in-depth articles. I wouldn't want to read them either.

bullshit.

If someone would write an article that long without offtopic infos that would be cool.

most of this text is just fluff to stretch out the whole thing without adding anything...

Which parts are offtopic?