I agree with the author’s article; it’s not that it’s a never ending torrent of dark mode zealotry, but at least for apps i’ve maintained, one of the first and most zealously pursued requests was always dark mode, even when theming options existed.
I prefer other color schemes and themes; not all white but mixture of softer colors — i have a language syntax file for np++ with lots of soft pastels and coloring for .log files that i prefer as it’s more gentle on my eyes. Usually i can get this with themes or ui hacks (e.g replacing assets when possible), but I’d never pursue such modes as diligently as dark mode enthusiasts do.
i don’t quite see the larger esoteric dilemma on binary design choices like the author did, but i’ve had the same experience of persons trying to “call me out” for not using dark mode in that “joking but seriously why are you doing that” sort of ways; the words were spoken with jest, but the conversation dragged on far past a friendly jab about not using dark mode and just became annoying. It’s probably the only feature with such zealousness and such low usage from my experience, and i also find the evidence of it being “better” very much so specious. Nothing against someone who wants dark mode a lot, that’s fine, just enough with the drama about it
I've been using light themes for some time now, after years of dark mode-ing everything. It actually works better for my eyes, at least where I'm able to set the background to be just a bit off-white. And like the author, when I've pasted screenshots into discussions, I've received jokes about my choice. You know, the gifs about people in dark rooms being blasted with light from their monitor. And ironically jokes about eyes burning, when this is friendlier to my eyes than dark mode was.
Seriously, it's your computer, just use whatever setup you prefer. If someone comments, make fun of them for caring about what you use on your machine.
I said that dark mode is not a neutral/inclusive choice, especially for people with astigmatism. If dark mode doesn't affect you, good for you, but the statement is factually correct.
The problem is that many websites simply turn on dark mode without checking what my OS/browser is configured for. That is really annoying.
While I don't discount the possibility of their existence, I've yet to personally encounter an application or web site that only has a dark theme, so the "dark mode only" complaint rings like the perennial "War on Christmas" rant.
This is particularly hard now when many sites use images of program code in order to get syntactic highlighting, because your page rewriting extensions do nothing.
No, it isn't. The article is complaining about people who complain about the author's choice of light mode. Nowhere does it mention any site or application that only supports dark mode.
You mean like just about literally every website (except a few that got shit for being 90s-era design) that forced bright backgrounds on users for the better part of 15 years or so before "dark mode" became a thing?