Well, paper is that, until we put a lot of effort (and chemicals) into bleaching it. Raw (non-bleached) paper is usually in shades of brown (think cardboard) or shades of gray for recycled papers.
But you would have to find a good white ink for printing, and that might be hard to do. The best black inks contain a fair amount of carbon, which is plentiful & easily available. I’m not so sure about a white ink.
Even unbleached paper is lighter than it is dark, and of course black ink IS quite easy to obtain, and contrasts well on unbleached paper. My father used to work for a place that made paper and cardboard and corrugated fiberboard, so I’m quite familiar with that shade.
Alright, so I’ve got three versions of the site up at the moment, so that my buddy can get feedback from his friends and colleagues. One with the black background we prefer, one with an off-white, and one with a hybrid. Would anyone care to give any feedback on the backgrounds?
http://www.suppersready.net/hhac/index.html
Just keep in mind that the site is nowhere near complete.
I think the black background looks nice, but my favourite is actually the hybrid.
The white one is the most minimalist, making it look the most modern. The only websites I see these days using black backgrounds are gaming or tech websites.
However, white backgrounds with pale gray lettering are even worse for legibility than black background/white text. There are plenty of ways to make your headline standout without making the body of your text recede. The info in the pale lettering is the stuff people are actually trying to read.
I think that the problem with dark backgrounds is similar to the problem of shining a light in after being in a darkened room. Our eyes get used to the black, and so the white looks incredibly bright. And too much bright light seems to hurt people’s eyes.
I personally am okay with black backgrounds most of the time, but I sometimes get that same weird feeling you get when your in pitch dark room and your trying to navigate. It’s just this slightly unsettling feeling where you notice any light or movement.
For web design, I think you’re better using color for the things that you don’t have to read for a long time, and leaving the main body text on white. And, whatever you do, don’t use a font smaller than 90%.
Oh, and image backgrounds are okay if they are subtle, like just a light water mark. Even slightly less than white backgrounds are okay. I haven’t heard anyone complain about the slightly gray text boxes. And I bet you didn’t even notice that the main background is 1 whole byte (i.e. #f8f8f8) less than white.
Hybrid is much better, IMO.
White-on-black is way too emo/heavy metal and hurts to read.
Actually, for the demonstrated purpose, the black is probably okay. There’s a huge difference between paragraph text which requires reading and callouts that you’re using.
The black wasn’t what I had feared. Possible 4th variant is a hybrid with a reverse fade of the light center area using a light blue. Something subtle.
I also think it comes down to traffic. Google ranks sites that are linked to more frequently higher than other sites, and it likes verifiable sites more (which is wrapped up in my first point).
Think about it this way. How many major news sites do you know that use black text on white background? Almost all of them. What about high traffic sites? IMDB, Wikipedia, most social media sites…it’s a matter of high traffic/linkage sites using that colour scheme, not Google liking the colour scheme more.
For others who hate reading long stretches of white text on black background, I present the Zap Colors bookmarklet for Firefox.
I like the white background on the linked site, which actually has a fair amount of color.
Just had Shawna Fennell in as a guest speaker to our eCommerce Meetup group, and what she told us was that Google’s prioritization is based not only on how many people visit your site, but how long they stay there. If they click through and then back out right away, you’ll get a lesser rank than a site where a click through is followed by a lengthy stay. (How this is done, she didn’t explain.)
Added to this tidbit is the fact that people tend not to stay on dark backgrounded webpages as long as light backgrounded ones. Perhaps it’s readability, perhaps it’s because people assume it’s an amateur page instead of a professional, perhaps it’s something else…Shawna suggested that people feel “trapped” on such pages, as if they’ve accidentally wandered into a dark cave, and their instinctive reaction is to get back out as quickly as possible. But for whatever reason, her assertion was that having a dark background IS likely to get you ranked lower on Google, because people will be backing out of it more quickly than your competitor’s light page.
Seeing as this is a woman who got a fake webpage “selling” rain coats for frogs up to the number one spot in 2 days (as an experiment), I feel pretty confident that she knows what she’s talking about. 
ETA: So it’s not that Google has a preference for white backgrounds, it’s that *people *do, and Google follows.
As one who wrote earlier to oppose dark backgrounds, let me agree with Balthasar. Your dark-background version looks best. (Or try a very dark blue.)
I agree that dark text on light background is much better. It doesn’t have to be stark like black and white, but perhaps a cream colored background and brown text? Gives it an earthy feel. Maybe a pale green background with black text… subliminally sends the money image…
It doesn’t have to be black and white, but as long as it’s dark-on-light, I’ll read it.