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.
If I care enough about another user to note them across time and communities, I give them a tag.
In the other direction, I don’t expect anyone to recall my username from one thread to another, to build any sense of my broader personhood greater than one interaction provides.
An avatar just seems unnecessary. I’m also on an app that only displays them if I go out of my way to see them.