Do you prefer glossy paper work? glossy book pages? glossy construction documents? The preference for a non-reflective surface for the relaying of dense information has been established for decades.
You know what's glossy? Movie posters and postcards.
Paper, books, and construction documents all use reflected and not refracted light.
ooh, my feathers were a bit ruffled (for reasons unrelated) when I wrote the above.
I still say for comfortable all day viewing and productivity, there is no comparison. Glossy does have more pop on a phone or watching movies in the dark, but I'd go blind doing that all day every day..
non-reflective surfaces you cite have pigments on TOP. screens have depth causing parallax and light spreading. Your point would be valid if screens were paper-thin and image pixels came out the very surface
You'd need a jewelers loupe to appreciate parallax and spreading. Not a real problem in general use.
i use a matte screen protector on my iphone. without it, i can see pixels. with it, i cannot. no loupe, just my nearsighted eyes
You can see actual pixels on a retina iphone? That is remarkable eyesight. I could do it on old non retina iphones but not on retina models.
Kind of a cool thing about being nearsighted. Without glasses, I can get very close to things and still focus on them, i get to see very small details.