@aescling @Lady It's for when you want the impression of volume, but without any particular care for the individual pieces composing it or what their placement means about it.

So Tumblr uses it for its search pages if you're not logged in. "There are people here about this! They're saying... well, something, probably!""

@gaditb @aescling this is true but a shorter answer is “information density maximalism”

@Lady @aescling Hmm.

Yes but in an aesthetic, not functional, way?

Functionally, information density for digital interfaces is measured for most people in bits/time, not bits/area. (bits/area may be relevant for people/use-cases that have limitations on scrolling speed, but that's (a) not common and (b) still reduces to bits/time.)

Like, this isn't a printed document.

(There are digital layouts that legitimately aim to maximize bits/area in a functional way like this, but that layout -- where it's all the same type of item -- isn't one of them.)