this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2025
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Are you serious? As I'm typing this comment Lemmy has just over 4" of totally unused space on the left of my monitor and 3 1'2" of unused space on the right!
Seriously, see for yourself!
Granted that's not the fault of the monitor but not only does widescreen reduce the amount of viewable area top to bottom modern web hackery doesn't even fucking use all of that extra space side to side!
I have about the same viewable area now as I did in 2000 with a 20" "square" monitor!
Stop making a single browser window full screen and use the additional space on the side for something useful. A chat application, a notepad, a calculator, file browsing, a second browser window, documents, etc.
Or rotate the display to be tall instead of wide if you really want the extra vertical space.
Just because you haven't bothered to take advantage of the space doesn't mean it's useless. You've just trapped yourself in a close-minded box. Making the monitor wider doesn't 'reduce the amount of viewable area top to bottom', it adds additional area to the sides, primarily for additional tasks in an office setting. It's up to you to actually use it.
I don't think widescreens exist "primarily for additional tasks in an office setting". I think they're the default because, as another user said, TVs were that ratio.
It's weird that it's fine for widescreens to have additional areas to the sides that aren't used by many apps, but adding space vertically that would automatically be used by every office application isn't fine.
Yes you can use two apps side by side, yes you can rotate your screen, but the software in general literally defaults to reducing that available space by putting the taskbar and menus where they are, while usually being full screen screen by default.
Saying "You're using it wrong" is blaming the user for using the computer the way it was presented out of the box.
It's also the way we've used computers for nearly fifty years and the way we interact with every other display in our lives. As examples almost no one uses less than the full wide of their TV, Smart Phone, or Tablet. There's no reasons that computer displays should be any different and they weren't until pretty recently.
Edit: Deleting this comment because I'm an idiot.