Really? I don't like modern design or material UI at all, and one of the things I most dislike is huuuge fonts. I apply custom CSS to reduce them to 10-12 pt where 16-24 pt seem common now.
Yes. Look at the GMail UI for example, or Google Groups: https://groups.google.com/g/golang-dev (BTW, its UI designer needs to be fired and banned from working on UI design for life).
There are large empty margins around each line. That grow if you try to increase the scale. If these margins were decreased, you could have seen more information on one screen.
I think whats happening is that displays/devices are increasing in resolution but some websites specify tiny font sizes which don't scale. Not a web developer so I could be wrong.
Hacker news is actually an example of this. I usually zoom in by 110%.
PLEASE USE LARGER FONTS.
One thing I hate about modern design is the use of microscopic fonts with giant margins around them. Often with poor contrast.
The whole "material UI" is built like this.