I've developed a new pet peeve -- black scroll bars with black 'thumbs' on black background

[eppur_se_muova]

SRSLY, who comes up with these stoopid ideas ?

[Submariner]

1. The same people who print hard to see light gray type on a white background

like your T.R. quote, which is the same light colored small font in many internet articles.

These people are 20 to 25 year old techies with perfect eyesight who like screwing with us Boomers by making the font smaller and lighter to drive us (me) crazy.

[hlthe2b]

2. Ohhh, I'm with you and was just going to post that. Pale gray on white and barely there font?

Really?

[Foolacious]

3. In what context does this happen?

Meanwhile, I agree with the "gray on gray" comments in the thread. I worked closely for a time with a young company (with young personnel, average age about 25) on the user interface for their online publishing product. I had to remind them frequently that their target market -- people closer to my age than theirs -- was going to have a hard time, for example, zeroing in on a very narrow scroll bar that was pale gray on almost-as-pale gray... when it hadn't disappeared from view entirely.

[csziggy]

4. You can always set up a high contrast theme on your (Windows) computer

Right click on the screen, pick Personalize, the Ease of Access Center, Set up High Contrast. Be warned - the Ease of Access screen narrates which things are selectable even if you aren't trying to pick anything.