I wonder why I see the take "I don't use this thing/see the value, therefore it is bad and shouldn't exist." so much more on HN than anywhere else? It's such a weird view.
I think it would also be unnecessary to add modifiers to unicode that let me, say, represent a glyph of a man in a dress, or a modifier that lets you use those family emojis while clarifying that one of the parents is an amputee. Just because you can find someone who can write a twitter thread on why those additions are absolutely necessary doesn’t mean I’m lazy or disdainful or, let’s say, transphobic/ableist.
Any argument to the contrary really needs to examine from what angle they're making their argument because they are not based on empathy but something of the opposite.
You could make your same argument for “latinx”. Who cares if people on NPR say it? It’s harmless and inclusive! Well, that’s where we disagree.
Once again, attacking arguments that you disagree with by asserting they come from a place of bad character isn’t a discussion. It also seems like you risk giving yourself too much credit by seeing your views as some sort of paragon of virtues like empathy, thus anyone who disagrees must be against your self-appointed virtues.
The arguments against are not based on any logical or rational footing (because adding them is trivial and people want them to be added) so the assumption is that they are making arguments on emotion. Why would someone argue against inclusion based emotion? Because they don't want to be inclusive. You don't have to arrive at this conclusion because you believe you have some moral superiority, you can arrive on it based on common sense.
How convenient it must be to believe oneself to be in exclusive possession of logic and reason. This is not the way to charitably interpret an argument.
The biggest reason these features should never have been added in the first place: the more opportunities everyone has to notice and be reminded of everyone's differences, the longer those differences will remain divisive.
The saying used to be, "On the Internet nobody knows you are a dog." We were all brought together by the common language of text. I became friends with people of many nations, colors, and sexual backgrounds. Now, every single interaction has to be labeled with your "identity," as if a single color code point could remotely capture that, and it drives us all apart.
This is amplifying exclusivity in the name of inclusivity.
So because people are discriminatory, we shouldn't be more inclusive at the risk of enabling those who...discriminate? The only reason these issues are divisive is because those who are insecure with their personal identity make them divisive. We shouldn't appease discriminators at the cost of letting people express their true identities.
Also, you cannot "remotely capture" ethnicity and culture in a single color code, even yellow. Yellow is light and implies a lighter skin. It's inherently (no matter how you want to argue it) promoting or portraying human skin as light.
I'm not sure where you get to your conclusion but it seems like, based on the adoption of skin tone variants, the only ones amplifying exclusivity are those that want things to stay exclusive.