Text should have the same size today is it did in the 90s. If your monitor has a higher resolution then please use DPI scaling isntead of wasting screen space for everyone else. That way old websites will still be readable without having to update everything.
HN would have rendered at the equivalent of 16px (exactly, actually) on a 90s computer. The issue here is that Apple and Windows assume two different default DPIs for a 90s computer (72 vs 96dpi), and as result, what 1pt is can differ by 1/3rd.
