I'm not GP but:

> If you don't like GNOME's design then just don't use it,

I don't, but for many years GNOME has been in a position where it can't use this excuse any more.

GNOME is most people's first experience of a Linux desktop. These days, more people than ever are giving Linux a try, for various reasons not relevant to this discussion. Most of those people will use GNOME first because it's the default for many distros, and often recommended for its simplicity even when people do have a choice.

Now GNOME could take the feedback from users that give it, and start to earn the position it takes in the ecosystem. Instead GNOME has been infamous for many years of actively dismissing user issues. If you have an issue with GNOME and you search for it online, not only are you likely to find it's a known and often long-standing issue, you're likely to find it being either closed or ignored so you know there's no point even trying to file it again.

An experienced Linux desktop user might just shrug and move on to something else. A first-time Linux desktop user can be forgiven for thinking that if this is the experience they have with the most famously user-friendly DE, then the Linux desktop as a whole just isn't for them.

GNOME's attitude towards user issue reports is hurting the Linux desktop as a whole, especially early in the adoption pipeline where the leverage of damage is greatest.

> The developers are already aware of what bugs are present and what features are missing.

Of course the developers are aware what bugs are present, users have been filing them for years, they just don't get resolved. In some cases features already existed and were actively removed with no adequate workaround; and no, extensions as they currently exist are NOT an adequate workaround. I'm not saying it's easy to fix, I'm saying when the state of extensions is so infamously poor and even GNOME developers can often admit that, GNOME developers cannot then turn around and use extensions as an excuse to actively remove working features or dismiss requests for features now standard to every modern DE.

Most people commenting are software developers too, we understand the pain of having to maintain a large project that has years of tech debt. Developers have every reason to be eager to purge old code and reluctant to add new code. But when user experience is on the line, especially in the one DE that most often forms a new user's first Linux experience, you have to actually listen to user feedback and make some tough calls that favor users. At the very least you can't blame the users for reporting the experience the users had, especially when GNOME has already made sure that filing issues constructively is a waste of time so venting on HN is all that's left.

In this HN thread you've told people to stop complaining or use something else or volunteer their own time to help GNOME fix its own mess. How many of those things would you say to a brand new Linux user who tried GNOME in earnest and filed a well-meaning bug trying to participate in the community constructively without being a developer? Never mind, from this thread and many GNOME issues and forum threads online, I already know exactly how the GNOME project and its advocates treat such reports and such users.