On Sun, 6 Sep 2020 at 22:45, Alfred M. Szmidt <ams@gnu.org> wrote:

>    1) Improve the default theme: Maybe set a default dark theme to make
>    emacs feel more modern. Experienced users usually already have a custom
>    theme, so they won't be affected. There is actually some statistics
>    about downloades themes here:
>
> This would be an utterly disastrous change.  As an experienced user, I
> do not have a custom theme, and prefer to use the defaults of Emacs.
>

Same for me, and I'm pretty sure we're not alone.

Also, while dark background is popular right now, it's not necessarily
better. Apart from the fact that there is actual science showing that dark
backgrounds are worse for one's eyes, I believe the current trend is merely
the pendulum is swinging back.

Recall that backgrounds used to be dark back in the terminal era. Then
monitors became better and white background was finally usable. Now, people
who only ever have experienced white backgrounds wants to change things for
the sake of change, so that is now popular, even though it's actually
quantifiably worse.

This Wired article on the topic contains links to actual research on this:
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/dark-mode-chrome-android-ios-science

Regards,
Elias