Was it written by an ESL speaker? Sometimes non-English speakers feel insecure starting a point without "However", "Because of this", and other conjunctions. If you don't need a conjunctions, you can say "Nowadays", but you don't need it. It's like the "auto" keyword in C. Because ESL speakers cram a lot of grammar into a few years, rather than spending years making simple sentences, they often use advanced patterns when simpler ones would suffice.