Why are most Megami pin-ups now using a white background? I compared magazine releases from 2010 https://yande.re/pool/show/1530 and they were more colorful. Is this due to cost-cutting or laziness?

Probably the former, plus it uses less ink to print all copies of the magazine…

But it’s unfortunate, for sure! ;__;

You still can add a custom background yourself in GIMP/Photoshop (playing with layers and alpha channels) after dowloading them.

let's assume there was a background artist for these illustrations and they laid him off, or he just quit, imagine creating new setups for so much works in shrot period of time. On the side note, there's a lack of full figure illustrations, mostly you have chopped off legs and arms in recent issues.