The best and most official explanation I've read is the 2017 GNOME blog post, Status Icons and GNOME.

Essentially, tray icons are a throwback to the days before designated notification and media playback APIs, and they now create some ambiguity for app developers, in addition to being ripe for abuse.

It's a worthwhile read and the writer makes several valid points, but doesn't address as much as I'd like in terms of actual solutions for things like instant messengers.

Personally, I would be happy if most traditional tray apps could be displayed in the dash, with status indicators, and started in a minimized state, but I still see the benefit of having some always-visible panel icons, such as instant messengers and VPN indicators.

Gnome spends a lot of time testing user designs that are simple and get the task done for the 99% marketshare they don't have. They try not to be bound by our current approach to computers, and instead idealize what most of the world actually wants.

I think it's a noble goal but will never touch it. I'm surprised other people do. That said, I'll always support them because of how much they upstream.

Some links explaining this topic:

• https://gitlab.gnome.org/Teams/Design/os-mockups/-/issues/150
• https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xdg/xdg-specs/-/issues/84
• https://blog.tingping.se/2019/09/07/how-to-design-a-modern-status-icon.html

I like that initial installation is reduced to the max ant then you can add what you need rather than removing what you don’t want. I guess thats a design philosophy where the alternative KDE interface tries to put everything in on initial installation I like as well that GNOME creates rails for app developer to achieve continuity in user experience throughout all apps

Well... they don't like the design of a "system tray". To be fair, it's a very Windows centric idea, and the notion that they must provide one because Windows has one seems... similarly questionable to me too. Speaking personally I hate the idea, and always have. It's a real dumpster fire because:

• Lots of drivers (on Windows) assume you don't know how to launch programs, and force a permanent launch shortcut on you.
• Programs assume you don't understand how to minimize or hide a window, and put themselves in the tray instead. (launchers, chat programs, etc)
• Some programs seem to use them just to put their logo on the screen. You can't really do anything with the tray icon.
• Few icons match stylistically, and even on Windows, they don't match the system style. (White icons on a white taskbar? FFS)
• Programs often don't provide an option to disable their tray icons, and it's rare that I want them.

I guess I found the lack of them to be a breath of fresh air when I first tried Gnome 3 a few years ago. The current iteration doesn't quite work though... 99% of the time I just want an option to kill the damn things, but I've have had some programs that only provide functions through the system tray. It's dumb, and I hate it, but it is what it is.

It's part of the "focus" workflow. Having app indicators might distract you from your current task, so they don't want them.

I don't have the answer, though im positive someone else here does. On Fedora, an appindicator extension is included with the distro, but disabled by default, and this is still suboptimal UX.

The biggest offender for me was the overview at login change with gnome 40. It was so controversial that it even pulled in Matt Miller to weigh in on the matter directly. The exchange is extremely disappointing

I still use gnome, and I feel that it's still the most polished DE available, I'm just worried about what other changes they might incorporate without any user-centric reasoning.

What is the problem? There are many other DE:s with tray. Gnome does not listen community much.

I think you're supposed to use the new notification panel now, which kinda works like those in android and ios, but it'll take a while until 3rd party apps supporting them.

Their design was more mobile type wherr you don't minimize windows, you just switch between them or between spaces. I've used Gnome forever, including the rough times on Gnome 3.0, and I've always used a system tray as well. Never liked leaving clutter everywhere and imo it goes against the minimal design. But thankfully easily extendible.