Have none of you ever worked for a designer or marketing person who was unwilling to accept that a bit of text might wrap on Windows (Arial), but fit on one line on a Mac (Helvetica)?
Until we can get the major operating systems to include some of the most popular open-source fonts, we're stuck with web fonts.
If macOS, Windows, Debian, iOS, and Android all came with Roboto, Source Sans, Lato, Merriweather, Raleway, etc. pre-installed, then we could make the case that if we used those fonts instead of non-free ones we would have consistency across all platforms and better performance for our users.
Since I doubt that day will ever come, we instead need to weigh an inconsistent appearance against a poor experience for those on slow connections. Different organizations will choose to prioritize different things, and that's ok.
A significant portion of marketers and designers will always demand pixel perfection for their websites. I'm just glad we're not putting text inside of images any more.
Until we can get the major operating systems to include some of the most popular open-source fonts, we're stuck with web fonts.
If macOS, Windows, Debian, iOS, and Android all came with Roboto, Source Sans, Lato, Merriweather, Raleway, etc. pre-installed, then we could make the case that if we used those fonts instead of non-free ones we would have consistency across all platforms and better performance for our users.
Since I doubt that day will ever come, we instead need to weigh an inconsistent appearance against a poor experience for those on slow connections. Different organizations will choose to prioritize different things, and that's ok.
A significant portion of marketers and designers will always demand pixel perfection for their websites. I'm just glad we're not putting text inside of images any more.