I'd say so, although I'd use the term advanced user / power user instead of nerd, as I feel the interpretation is less contextual.
My personal observations on why that could be the case:
- Markdown has a very technical origin - I really only saw it gain adoption with GitHub (please excuse if that was only my perception and it gained the popularity elsewhere). So far, it hasn't spread too far into the non-technical world.
- The average end-user prefers a WYSIWYG style. Yes, some markdown editors are rich editors with WYSIWYG controls, but then you could argue the user is not really writing markdown.
- The way markdown is defined, it works really well with mono-spaced fonts. Again, great for technical content (e.g. code), not so great for lengthy paragraphs.
- I am always surprised with how many people are using the visual WYSIWYG buttons to make a word appear in bold vs. how many use CMD/CTRL + B, in spite of writing quite a lot. Common users may not spend the time to learn the code?
I don't think the size of a website plays a role in whether something is legal. I could see a few issues here, one of them below (I am not a lawyer):
According to GDPR "It shall be as easy to withdraw as to give consent.": You could argue that accepting the cookies is easier (press of a button) than initiating a payment when one chooses to object at a later point.
In many browsers (e.g. Safari), the scrollbar is hidden when not scrolling, while the reading progress bars I know remain visible permanently. Furthermore, the scrollbar describes the whole vertical length of the website, not necessarily that of the specific content you are reading. I do personally observe a trend of the ratio content length vs. full page length increasing (e.g. increasing use of white space in web design).
This is not commenting in favor or against reading progress bars. But if one concludes that reading progress bars are a good idea, I welcome the widespread adoption. The spread would mean that more users become familiar with the design pattern and its meaning.
Interesting question where TC got that information. The e-mail only states "This exposure impacted a small percentage of our customers." but no explicit percentage.
EDIT: Rereading the article helped: they received a statement from DO.
My personal observations on why that could be the case: - Markdown has a very technical origin - I really only saw it gain adoption with GitHub (please excuse if that was only my perception and it gained the popularity elsewhere). So far, it hasn't spread too far into the non-technical world. - The average end-user prefers a WYSIWYG style. Yes, some markdown editors are rich editors with WYSIWYG controls, but then you could argue the user is not really writing markdown. - The way markdown is defined, it works really well with mono-spaced fonts. Again, great for technical content (e.g. code), not so great for lengthy paragraphs. - I am always surprised with how many people are using the visual WYSIWYG buttons to make a word appear in bold vs. how many use CMD/CTRL + B, in spite of writing quite a lot. Common users may not spend the time to learn the code?