This is not true. We would have to define "practical use" but if you are looking at most used typefaces - things people see in around them the most it is dominated by commercial typefaces. It will be Helveticas, Arials, Times New Romans of the world. What people use in Word and Windows - all proprietary typefaces. Anything Apple - proprietary. Anything branded - brands usually typeface and that typeface is going to be proprietary - even on web.
Only platform that uses open-source typeface is Android with roboto/noto. If you are looking at webapps not marketing sites then yes you might get lot of Inter but trend is moving towards using system-ui font stack which is proprietary (except linux/android).
So no open-source typefaces are definitely not most used in practical use. Btw majority of the super popular ones are owned by Monotype the company this article is about.
The graphic designers I know all own a personal library of expensive fonts they’ve purchased over the years. Fonts being good matters a lot more than them being free
Really good free fonts are as rare as unicorns. One can spot good fonts by looking at the kerning, and most if not all free fonts suck at kerning, including Google Fonts.
> things people see in around them the most it is dominated by commercial typefaces
I agree, but I think that says more about how the market for OS-software evolved (with the assumption that the OS should provide core fonts "for free") as opposed to an indication of monopoly or lock-in.
The average person probably doesn't notice (nor care) about the subtle differences between those major (OS-company supplied) fonts versus open-source equivalents or their competitors' proprietary ones.
And quite franky, all of them would laugh in your face if you told them that fonts are something that ought to be provided "for free". Fonts come from designers, designers work hard and should be paid for their work. Accordingly, real professional designers pay for fonts -- by the hundreds or thousands, sometimes, so many fonts their computers slow down if they don't use special software to manage them all.
This is also why the strongest, healthiest software ecosystem exists on macOS. Because macOS still has that cultural creative core of its user base, a culture which believes that people who create things should be paid for their efforts. Accordingly, you can still release a commercial proprietary program on macOS and expect to make significant money -- even from a small user base. That's certainly not true on Linux and it increasingly isn't true on Windows -- except, maybe, for gaming.
As for the average person, we're not even talking about the digital world. Everything in print, everything written on television, uses fonts. And if they employ professional designers, those are going to be commercial fonts. The real deal, the ones that were first set in hot type by Swiss or Austrian guys a hundred years ago or more. Open source substitutes are no substitute at all.
> [designers] would laugh in your face if you told them that fonts are something that ought to be provided "for free"
That's a big *whoosh* or else you just felt like attacking a strawman.
Like I already said, I'm referring to how all major operating systems (including desktop Linux distros) bundle dozens of fonts to cover common needs. No average consumer is expected to spend additional money gaining the ability to see Greek math symbols or pseudo-handwriting or whatever.
It isn't the 1990s where you might see a retail-display box for Microsoft Windows 3.x adjacent to Microsoft TrueType Font Pack for Windows and Adobe Type Basics.
Similarly, disk-defragmentation tools are now in there "for free", and a TCP/IP stack is there "for free", etc.
Well yes, but in era of reproducible science, we need fonts which can be reproduced by the people who recompile the scientific data and regenerate the reports. Proprietary fonts are kind of a bottleneck in that respect.
Only platform that uses open-source typeface is Android with roboto/noto. If you are looking at webapps not marketing sites then yes you might get lot of Inter but trend is moving towards using system-ui font stack which is proprietary (except linux/android).
So no open-source typefaces are definitely not most used in practical use. Btw majority of the super popular ones are owned by Monotype the company this article is about.