I'm not sure why you're saying that's antisocial, it was completely true then and it's still somewhat true now. GNOME, Ubuntu and XFCE all have their own subtle

I'm not sure why you're saying that's antisocial, it was completely true then and it's still somewhat true now. GNOME, Ubuntu and XFCE all have their own subtle differences, if you want to have a good experience for any one of them you'll have to target that specific desktop and test for it. Placing the blame for this solely on GNOME doesn't make any sense, when each of those groups all have their own product that they're trying to promote.