From the article, it looks like Gwern, at least, thought quite a lot about text justification --- see the "Abandoned" section --- so the "learn how typography works" comment seems a bit unfair.
My point being that applying rules learnt from hundreds of years of literary culture and printing do not 1:1 translate into digital.
Justified copy is as much about saving paper as it is about any formality/legibility. It really has no place in long form digital space where space is infinite.
Type designers like consistent and even rhythm between the ink and page. Rivers of white and large gaps between words give the ick.
That would be the absolute extreme of minimalism, yes. But it's a never-ending rabbit hole. I don't really need a website, either. So the absolute extreme minimalist website is one that doesn't exist.
To me, colors are important. I'm a visual artist. The minimal amount of colors to me is an additional two to your two. It's not arbitrary, I didn't just go crazy with colors, I settled on exactly four because I couldn't reduce it to three.
> So the absolute extreme minimalist website is one that doesn't exist.
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what minimalistic design means.
If you've identified that you need a website, minimalism would be paring that down to the core essentials and ensuring it has everything it needs, but nothing more, to suit its purpose.
That subtle background gradient is lovely. I like how it adds a frame to the text without distracting from it. It evokes the right vibe, I think.
That's a design element that serves the functionality well and doesn't feel superfluous at all. But the image on the colophon page I'm less excited about. It gets in the way and feels unnecessary.
