News organizations across the board have gotten into this bizarre arms race with "interactive" multimedia... and I genuinely have no idea why they think readers want it! The Verge in particular always has dozens of comments complaining about how distracting and unreadable some of their UI choices are.
I suspect part of the answer is similar to Facebook's "pivot to video" - some unscrupulous company has gaslit news executives into thinking that "interactive content" is the future of journalism, and are selling frameworks / consulting services / etc. (Though part of the problem with The Verge is Nilay Patel himself. Nilay seems like a good egg, but he has been obstinate and arrogant about The Verge's UI changes. Can't argue with taste...)
I suspect part of the answer is similar to Facebook's "pivot to video" - some unscrupulous company has gaslit news executives into thinking that "interactive content" is the future of journalism, and are selling frameworks / consulting services / etc. (Though part of the problem with The Verge is Nilay Patel himself. Nilay seems like a good egg, but he has been obstinate and arrogant about The Verge's UI changes. Can't argue with taste...)