I know this is from 2021, but for the love of god stop with the toggles. I have one toggle, it works system-wide. Respect it. You don't have to guess what theme I want, I already told my OS.
Another point is that some types of content just don't work with dark mode. Maps for example. I have used multiple apps that use maps or present data on a map. None of the maps look good when dark. As such I always turn off dark mode if an app displays maps as part of its main user journey.
Can you say more about your use case and why you prefer gray over black?
There's a CSS preference for contrast. It seems easy enough to handle `@media(prefers-contrast: low)` and set a gray background. The contentious part would presumably be the default; I would have thought #000000 was the obvious default for a dark mode but apparently that's not what everyone prefers. Ideally, OSes and browsers would expose controls for this in a straightforward way, the way they handle dark mode. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference/A...
Does your preference change if you reduce your screen brightness?
Bright features over a really dark background can be unsettling, but that's about screen adjustment, not really about the software colors.
Anyway, I do argue that people shouldn't just pick #000 and #fff by default. But that's because if you are already using the extremes of your palette, you can't get a more extreme one when you need to emphasize something. The arguments on "unnatural" colors and visual preferences all seem baseless to me, because those numbers don't correspond with any actual physical color, they are all relative.
About dark maps, I've seen it done well. Exactly once, and I can't point you the software because it was embedded and I don't remember what the device was. But as hard as it seems to be, it is still possible.
I don't like all toggles to be gone since dark mode quality varies a lot, and also I may want some sites or apps one way and some another way. So removing the choice and slapping all configuration under a single "dark/light" browser toggle really annoys me, especially when sites stop providing the toggles because it's more convenient to just use the CSS property and do less. To me it's another step in the dumbing down of the UIs that I regret.
Perfectly ok with defaulting to that global setting though.
Similar vibes to the relative date infection with no option to opt out and get the full date in most sites nowadays.