I guess everyone's mileages vary depending on their eyesight, my eye's are 53 years old now and aren't as spritely as they used to be.
This is something I don't like about VS Code. by being low contrast it means I have to turn up monitor contrast meaning everything else burns.
There is a solution, but it's a bit more complicated and requires introducing additional user preferences. Supply two color options in the css, and allow user to choose high/low brightness.
HN already has some profile filters, so adding one more might not be a problem, but I can also see how it becomes a slipper-slope of new features.
If the OS has it, you can set it to gradually phase in and out of the temperature change at a particular time. The Radeon drivers go one step further by understanding that as the year progresses, "night" and "day" happen at different times.