The latest anti-feature from Automattic—now infecting Gravatar. Photo by: Unattributed, Copyright Unattributed. Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0.
Happily Imperfect posted Bye bye Gravatar a short while ago, and I have to say, I've had a similar thought about deleting my account on there as well. My feelings towards WordPress and Automattic started changing some time ago, back when they introduced the Gutenberg editor. Ever since this “improvement” it's been a downhill slide for WordPress to the point where it's become an unusable mess in my opinion.
I know a lot of people also think that Matt Mullenweg's recent statements about WordPress, open source, and other companies have been problematic. I reserve my opinions on those areas. Instead, I am judging the quality of the software and the services that are being produced.
But there is an irony when it comes to Gravatar: even though it serves little purpose in and of itself, it does do one thing: it serves your avatar. I can't say how many times in the past I've logged into some new site / application only to have my avatar automatically populate itself. For a while it was jarring because I hadn't updated Gravatar for years. But at least it was filling in something rather than nothing. And, I felt that something filled a purpose: a consistency of identity across the web.
But, now I wonder about that. I cannot recall the last time my avatar was automatically filled in. The only notable case recently was that my avatar updated automatically on GitHub when I changed it on Gravatar. And, honestly my feelings towards GitHub and Microslop are in the shitter as well. So, there's that.
And now, I have an absolute reason to nuke this f***ing account all to hell. I do NOT EVER consent to ANYTHING being done in regard to AI in my name. There was never any notification sent about this change to Gravatar. Hell, I haven't received any notice of any changes being made to Gravatar in the last 5–10 years. It was a similar change that pushed me over the edge with WordPress, and I feel the same way about it with Gravatar.
I know, they haven't actually sent anything directly to any chatbots on my behalf. But the fact that they saw fit to add this ANTI-feature without announcing it speaks more about where Automattic is in the process of enshittifying their products than anything else. Nope—it's goodbye to any and everything Automattic, including Gravatar.
With newer sites like Bio Link and FediProfile I don't see the usefulness of Gravatar. If anything, I think it now has ANTI-features.
And now Gravatar is gone, kaput, deleted. Goodbye and good riddance.
Categories: #Rant Tags: #response, #automattic, #ai, #antiai, #nukeittohell License: Copyright Unattributed. Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0.