Because it is extremely distracting and I actually couldn't read the article because of it.

When you say you couldn't read the article, could you expand on that? Were you physically unable to due to nausea or something like that, or moreso that you refuse to read it as a matter of principle because of the unnecessary animations?

I feel I am unable to block out a lot of activity going around in the background, in real life I also have the same reaction if there is tons of activity going on around me when I am trying to read. I couldn't concentrate on the contents because of the movement in the background. It gave me this weird sense of anxiety over what was going to happen next and was unable to focus and absorb the contents. I ended up just kinda skimming. I was anxious to try to get it over with.

Wow, very interesting, thanks.

It's weird but I found my self unable to focus and comprehend the contents. It's like I'm reading but I can't understand a whole sentence. It would be better if the snow is kept to the background area. Instead, it sometimes flew right past the exact word I was reading.

Because the animation is incredibly CPU intensive for the effect that it has.

Is it causing performance problems for you on the site? The algorithm's efficiency shouldn't be a factor in your decision here.

Mostly issues of laptop battery life and heating. I have a five-year-old laptop that can usually last about 3 hours when browsing the internet. Usually, that browsing consists of spikes of CPU activity when rendering the page, then low CPU activity when scrolling through. However, with that animation, the CPU activity stayed consistently high. This is enough to make the laptop uncomfortably warm and increase the fan speed, providing noise.

It isn't something that makes the site unusable by any means, but it is something that gives an annoyance without a benefit to me.