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What Makes a Good Web Font
SitePoint writes "We've published an article on the way in which fonts are used on the Web. We found that a large "x-height" (the height of a lowercase 'x' in relation to the total height of the font) makes fonts more readable on a computer screen, as does a wide "punch width" (the width of the hole inside letters such as 'o' and 'b'). Helvetica is a good font to use online. The designer's choice of fonts is usually limited by the user's OS, but techniques such as SIFr (example) are allowing Web designers to provide their own fonts."
The user often doesn't know that they can change fonts. My wife occasionally does web design for her clients. It isn't her main line of work but sometimes a client wants that as part of the package. Invariably they want pretty fonts. Usually "pretty" is defined as what they personally like. It takes a fair bit of education to convince the client that they should not be specifying fonts, that the viewer should do that. And then it takes a bit of education to show the client how to set the font preference on their browser.