> I feel like everyone hated on Gnome because it was different. They tried it for ten minutes, didn't bother trying to actually learn how to use it, declared it as "shit", and moved on. I was one of those people.

I don't want to learn how to use my computer. I know how I want my computer to work. I just want to adjust my desktop environment to match my vision (which doesn't really match the default of any window manager)

This is where gnome fails for me because it's opinionated software: they have a vision of how it should work and everything is forced that way. Similar to how Apple does it. Choices and configurations are reduced to a minimum.

So for me KDE with its huge configurability is just what I need and gnome is absolutely not. I did actually try to use it on a touch device (surface pro 3) but I needed so many plugins to make it work my way that I started getting issues with plugins interfering with each other and not supporting the latest updates etc. With KDE I could set it all up my way with built in settings. Opinionated software is just the wrong model for me. Unfortunately it's becoming more common because people still look up to Apple.

Ps in similar ways I also mod websites, I have custom stylesheets for a lot of sites I use that remove pics and make it just a plain old list of content similar to hacker news. People who are UX designers probably frown on this but they are designing for everyone (and often not with the user's wishes in mind but ulterior motives like marketing and engagement!), not for me. I know what works best for me. And I don't let others tell me what I should want.

> I feel like everyone hated on Gnome because it was different. They tried it for ten minutes, didn't bother trying to actually learn how to use it, declared it as "shit", and moved on

Anecdote time.

I was using GNOME for a substantial amount of time, despite all the issues that it was giving me - the regressions, removing functionality, breaking extensions every so often; but the final straw that broke the camel's back was a tablet thing. At some point I think the ability to resize the left panel in Nautilus went away? Or maybe was never there to begin with. In any case, I found a discussion about the exact issue where the outlook was that resizing the left panel will not be added, as there's no way to signal the ability to resize it on touch screens.

At this point I decided that enough is enough and moved to KDE.

GNOME gets flak because they keep removing stuff people want for no good reason.

Thanks for formulating this, as I’m too lazy to even start the conversation with the folks who’d like to have a lot of everything on their screens, with myriads of distractions and just ugly little everything. Otherwise ‘that’s tablet,’ and it’s ‘the Gnome team pushing their nonsense,’ not the particular user being used to something completely wrong from the UI/UX perspective. I’m having no issues with teaching Gnome anyone. It’s simple. Yet powerful, I can use it no issues, and it’s my second favourite after Sway. I feel those of us who actually appreciate Gnome should be more vocal about it, otherwise these weirdos with 2 mins of Gnome experience yelling too loud.

ya i was a GNOME hater for a long time after the GNOME 3 transition, switched between Mate and KDE for years. But gave up on those due to persistent video instability and went to vanilla Ubuntu GNOME and it's actually pretty nice. Not sure if it was good originally but I actually prefer it now.