I'm going to bring up the potential abuse angle here if there's no opt out on featuring avatars.

We've had a few trolls with the habit of targeting specific users. Some users have recognizable avatars. Or in other cases a troll may target a specific type of user based on some demographic. Showing a user's avatar without an opt out option might be a privacy risk - being able to work out if a user is online now or potentially a safety risk. Considering last seen was removed for that reason, having avatars on main pages compulsorily seems a step back - the comments on this post reflect a good argument for it.

I'm going to bring up the potential abuse angle here if there's no opt out on featuring avatars.

We've had a few trolls with the habit of targeting specific users. Some users have recognizable avatars. Or in other cases a troll may target a specific type of user based on some demographic. Showing a user's avatar without an opt out option might be a privacy risk - being able to work out if a user is online now is potentially a safety risk. Considering last seen was removed for that reason, having avatars on main pages compulsorily seems a step back - the comments on this post reflect a good argument for it.