Related to the form of the article rather than the content: what purpose do pull quotes serve in an online publication? Especially on phones they are so goofy,

Related to the form of the article rather than the content: what purpose do pull quotes serve in an online publication? Especially on phones they are so goofy, you read the pull quote and then one or two lines later you read it again. I get it for scanability in newspapers but I think it should be deprecated in online publishing.