In believe that this change happened around the same time as the conversion of publication from hard copy to electronic submission.  Remember that the published margins and pagination are never the same as on the original submission.

In hard copy submission, the publisher had to completely reset the type, and could place footnotes wherever was convenient.  But now publishing begins with copy-and-paste.  This could end up placing the footnotes on the wrong page, etc.  

In believe that this change happened around the same time as the conversion of publication from hard copy to electronic submission.  Remember that the published margins and pagination are never the same as on the original submission.

In hard copy submission, the publisher had to completely reset the type, and could place footnotes wherever was convenient.  But now publishing begins with copy-and-paste.  This could end up placing the footnotes on the wrong page, etc.  

Very interesting issue. I would like to inform you that a lot of Iranian books on Humanities still use the footnote citations. I think that the hardcopies should follow footnote citations, although it could be impossible in softcopies. 

I too prefer footnotes, however it depends on what the publisher or university requires or what the field standard is. I have been using A.P.A. for years, now I need to switch to the Chicago Manual of style for graduate work in history.

So, to summarize: Endnote citations may be easier for publishers handling digital submissions, but nobody so far has given a comment in favor of this style from either a reader or author perspective.

"The style guide says so" likewise isn't really a reason. It just (reasonably) shifts the responsibility from the individual writer to a style guide, but it doesn't give a reason why the style guide has been formulated that way. 

Softcopies potentially making endnotes easier to handle seems like a plausible root cause though, albeit with a change of style to accomodate limited software seeming equally backwards and understandable. Backwards, if it results in an inferior format (up to debate, but so far nobody has spoken in favor of endnotes). Understandable, because software being unable to support imposed style requirements is rather frustrating and often not easily or timely fixed. 

Like Michael, I think this has to do with the practicalities of layouting and setting texts. From a technical point of view, endnotes simply are easier to layout. As someone who has worked as a layouter, I understand that trend – it is ultimately cheaper for the publishers. But as a writer and a reader, I much prefer footnotes too. 

By the way, if you are interested in the history of the footnote, I would recommend Anthony Grafton's The Footnote. A Curious History, Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press 1999. 

In my experience (from archaeology and related subjects) the issue is entirely governed by the house-style of the respective publication outlet. In terms of grappling with the practicalities of reading an article with endnotes, I tend to split the screen and reserve a small margin at the bottom for the endnotes while using the larger partition to read the text. Try it out, you might find it works for you. It would, of course, be better if the editors invested the time to hyperlink all citations, but that's another matter.

I prefer the in-text citations as I don't have to leave my place in the text to go to the bottom of the page to read the foot notes and then try to find my way back to where I was in the text.

Many thanks,

Debra

Jörn Schuster: How do you achieve that reading layout? On the desktop I can use two PDF readers concurrently to view different parts of a document at the same time (clunky but viable), but on tablets I see no possibility to achieve this in any software I'm aware of. Hyperlinks within the documents are the closest thing commonly available in newer papers, but even they involve switching pages and the associated interruption of the reading flow.

Hi Klaus-Dieter, sorry, I don't have anything as fancy as a tablet; I use a laptop with an additional screen attached. I only have experience with Adobe Acrobat X, where I can split the screen horizontally by pulling the little bar above the scroll bar on the right of the window. I hope this might be of some use to you (but you might of course know about that one already)? And I don't know whether that appears on the tablet version. It doesn't on the Android version – I suppose touch screens got rid of the need for a scroll bar...

I happen to come across the following assumption on the increasing use of endnotes. 

"I suspect the use of endnotes is becoming more and more common in order to keep typesetting costs down. If a footnote is added or deleted, many pages may have to be redone (since the spacing of the main body of text will change), whereas if an endnote is changed, only a page or two will need resetting."

https://www.dailywritingtips.com/should-you-use-footnotes-or-endnotes/