A variable font holds a range rather than a fixed set of styles. Instead of shipping nine weight files, one file describes the extremes and everything in between, and a renderer can produce any point along the axis.
Try it
Drag the weight axis. Every value between 200 and 800 comes out of the one font file.
Handgloves
200The quick brown fox
300The quick brown fox
400The quick brown fox
500The quick brown fox
600The quick brown fox
700The quick brown fox
800The quick brown fox
Weight axis
wght 400
One font file, every weight in between. A variable font stores the outlines once plus the instructions for moving them, so 437 is as available as 400, and a page can ship one file instead of six.
Weight and contrast are separate things. This slider adds mass to every stroke and leaves the RATIO between the thick and the thin roughly where it was. A Didone at 400 has more contrast than a grotesque at 800, and confusing the two is why "make it bolder" so often fails to fix a heading that was really suffering from too much contrast at too small a size.
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