The gradual obliteration of theme customization in everyday software is one of the things I regret the most, whenever I think about how we interacted with computers as I was growing up.
The vast majority of today's kids will never leave the sanitized computer experience of auto white/dark themes and hamburger menus. Having their local music player (no internet required, what a concept!) wrapped in a Kare Kano skin (🤍) would be unthinkable.
And yet, there's more soul in this single skin made by a random person just for the fun of it than in all the legions of UI/UX designers justifying their existence through ad placement maximization metrics.
