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Reminder: System76 is not to be trusted
(blogs.gnome.org)
A comm dedicated to the fight for free software with an anti-capitalist perspective.
The struggle for libre computing cannot be disentangled from other forms of socialist reform. One must be willing to reject proprietary software as fiercely as they would reject capitalism. Luckily, we are not alone.

$CURRENT_YEAR, take Linux Mint for a spin. If you're ready to take the plunge, flock to Fedora! If you're a computer hobbyist and love DIY, use Arch, Gentoo, Guix or the many, many offerings out there.
GTK is/was the defacto standard GUI library for Linux for well over 2 decades. Of course their decisions impact more than GNOME desktop users.
GTK used to be the library you would target when you wanted what I'd describe as native Linux look and feel. Now that's not really a thing any more.
The native Linux look and feel is not a real thing. It was a coincidence created by the fact that gnome and gtk was, as you mentioned, the de facto Linux toolkit and the design culture at the time.
Unless youre advocating for a world where everyone must be forced to compile down to gtk, you're welcome to keep your revisionism to yourself.
What are you even talking about. Of course native look and feel existed as something that both application developers and users desire.
It's not an absolute but an application can feel out of place or it can fit into a desktop environment.