I’m more comfortable with macOS than Windows and find many of the UX patterns on Windows to be grating. It doesn’t mean Windows is insane, just that I’m more accustomed to the macOS patterns.
FWIW the Dock can be hidden, and the menu bar at the top can hide as well when an app is in full screen mode.
In addition to the ActivityPub plugin, I would add the Friends plugin. When you have both, Friends will let you follow and respond to people via your WP site. At some point I want to make my Masto account followers-only and make my WP blog my public ActivityPub identity.
I saw your post on Mastodon, that’s where I found out about it!
Google’s promotion-pack culture strikes again. You don’t get promoted at Google for “maintaining a successful product and keeping people happy.” You do get promoted for launching a new product, even if it competes with another well-liked Google product.
So if you want to be successful at Google, you launch a new chat service.
Neither of those assertions are true, I don’t think you’re arguing from an informed position.