In comment sections or in community pages, it’s mostly an ocean of default avatars.

As a UI developer, that’s always been a gripe because I put a lot of effort into making them look good and scale properly, etc. When I see 60-70% or more accounts sporting the default avatar, it makes me wonder why I even bother.

So, since this bugs me so much, figured I’d just ask.

Lemm.ee users I can understand because of the waiting period for uploads, but AFAIK, most instances don’t have that restriction. Even then, there are plenty of .ee accounts that never bother to go back and set one.

  • brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    171·
    6 days ago

    Avatars aren’t info. They just clutter the screen. They very, very rarely are interesting. At worst, they show something inappropriate. They require moderation. They don’t match any aesthetic of the site.

    I literally didn’t know they were supported and never see them anyway.

  • Gustephan@lemmy.world
    31·
    4 days ago

    Avatars are a psychological trick useful for building up sunk cost fallacy and making a user more likely to personally identify with a product. I don’t have social media avatars for the same reason I don’t have “nabisco” tattooed on my asscheek.

  • marzhall@lemmy.world
    13·
    7 days ago

    Heck, I was salty when the old site added avatars. I already ignored names and was weirded out by “popular redditors” culture before avatars, and it was annoying to see a logo next to a name coloring my perception of the comment. I’m here to read comments, not to look at avatars

    • Etterra@discuss.onlineEnglish
      2·
      6 days ago

      Yeah same. Does Connect even have a setting for that? I mean I won’t use it; I guess I never bothered to look is all.

      • sibannac@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        6 days ago

        There is a setting. The profile pictures are so small in list view, you can’t really tell what it is.

  • zqps@sh.itjust.works
    9·
    7 days ago

    Because a lot of people don’t see a benefit in being recognized when pseudonymously interacting with strangers. And in some apps they aren’t displayed at all.

  • Gumby@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9·
    7 days ago

    I had no idea Lemmy even had avatars until I read this post. So I went into my profile out of curiosity - even though I already had “Show Avatars” checked, I’ve never seen a user’s avatar on here before. I did upload one for my own profile though for the hell of it.

  • insaneinthemembrane@lemmy.world
    7·
    6 days ago

    My app either doesn’t show them or it’s off by default. I didn’t know there were avatars but I’m not interested in them either since I’m reading on my phone and prefer a minimalist view.