Because you keep reading the same thing over and over again while all you want to do is read the new content:
===
a
===
> a
b
===
> > a
> b
c
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Another problem with inline quoting is that people are often lazy and quote everything, which means you need to scroll down a lot to hunt down for the new content.
> Another problem with inline quoting is that people are often lazy and quote everything, which means you need to scroll down a lot to hunt down for the new content.
The problem with top posting is that people systematically quote everything.
Inline quoting is what you just did here. It is the natural way for a discussion. The only interest of top posting is if you add new people to a thread and for them, bottom posting would be far more legible.
> The problem with top posting is that people systematically quote everything
I'd say it's the other way around.
Top posting fixes the problem of people quoting everything since everything is put below the signature.
The problem with inline quoting is that people quote entire paragraphs, even when they only mean to respond to a single sentence. Which leads to deluges of quoted text you have to scroll and scroll through until you reach the new content.
With Gmail and a top posted email discussion, I can catch up with the entire discussion with "n", read a few lines, "n", read a few lines, ... With inline quoting, catching up on such a discussion is exhausting.
Because you keep reading the same thing over and over again while all you want to do is read the new content:
Another problem with inline quoting is that people are often lazy and quote everything, which means you need to scroll down a lot to hunt down for the new content.