In some ways I feel that caring a lot about fonts is on the opposite side of the spectrum to whatever it is making a population feel their lives have more meaning during wartime or crisis.

As a visual designer, sure, it is you job. As a computer user whose ultimate goal of using a computer is something else... I am kind of an old fart, but I often find that the best content is often found in conjunction with "font-family: sans-serif".

I'm a mechanical engineering PhD who works on numerical computing, data analysis and the like. I've spent several hundreds of dollars on fonts. Because I like things being just so, because I like seeing the artefacts I produce being nice to look at, and because they're just plain beautiful.

Day to day, I use open source fonts that Butterick recommends. But once in a while, I like using just nice stuff. It's like a nice fountain pen for others.

I believe everything you say. I hope you didn't feel attacked. It is just a feeling I often get when I'm online. Some people seem to spend more time on form than actual content, and while I agree that how things look is a part of the expression, I am somewhat of a brutalist because I feel that it rarely matters much, and most of the time it is a distraction.

but again, I am an old fart who is sad gopher lost.

As an example, Tantacrul made a video about developing a sheet music font for Musescore (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGo4PJd1lng)