It depends on what you do. 16:9 is better for wathing 16:9 movies. But if you read lots of text, narrower, longer columns are usually a lot more handy. We have way more vertical than horizontal scrollbars.

I prefer 16:9 or 16:10 because I have a lot of windows side-by-side most of the time. I don't have 1 file open while coding, most of the time 2 or 3, in that case a wider screen is better in my opinion.

I've got a surface and in my opinion 3:2 is actually better for multitasking. You can fit two windows vertically. So you end up having 4 windows side by side.

> Why is 3:2 better than standard 16:9?

It's not better. It's usually just people projecting their personal preferences as though they should apply to everyone else.

Every one is different, so as long as the individual is content with what they've got, it doesn't really matter what aspect ratio they're using.

Because 16:9 ("shortscreens") was a ploy by manufacturers to sell a smaller screen for the same diagonal. Combined with much of the vertical dimension being eaten by the general pattern of window decoration + app taskbar + app toolbars + OS taskbar, and well, at least they're good for watching movies!

More vertical space for reading text, including code

Taller, better for coding.