Thanks for taking a minute to do this, it gives a nice side-by-side for a real-world example. What a great improvement.

That line spacing is obnoxiously big tho

Yeah, I agree the line spacing is far too much. Butterick's Practical Typography recommends 1.2 to 1.45: https://practicaltypography.com/line-spacing.html

Really the only reason to use a line spacing of 2 is if you are printing it and then editing the text with a pen. So... maybe in a print stylesheet in a very specific situation? But never on the web, IMHO.

Yeah when I saw 2em padding and 1.75 line height in the css I thought "too big". I think 1em padding and 1.5 line-height are a bit better for general defaults.

It often can look better to have more whitespace, but it lowers information density. It depends on the situation.

I think the line spacing is "comfy". Approved. For me.

Line spacing is atrocious

I honestly prefer the default version. Less scrolling to do.

That's the wrong metric. Scrolling is less straining than moving eyes (or even the head in this case).

People complain a lot about "wasted screen estate" but the first version that "doesn't waste blank space" is completely unreadable to me on desktop, I want to stop reading after the first line.

That website really grinds my gears. He's the equivalent of an HN influencer I guess, because I seem to come across him every three days. Like the Stratecherry guy. And it's so naff. It's clearly designed to look like that on purpose and it's kind of a thumbing-your-nose at your audience thing. "My words are so important that you can get fucked if you want max-width". It REALLY annoys me way more than it should. After all, it's just another dude on the internet.

But more horizontal eye movement, which at least I find unpleasant

Try reading his site on a 21:9 and your eyes start bleeding.

well, browser windows can be resized to take half one's screen...

Can't help but think that both would look a lot better w/ text-align: justify on paragraphs.