If I had the opportunity I always thought it would be fun to learn and then modify the Linux kernel so that file lookups to ~/.* get redirected to ~/config/.* and I could finally have a clean home directory.
Might be.
I've been trying something similar using Apple's framework bundle layout[2] and using XDG to point config files to ~/Library/ApplicationSupport etc, but programmers know better! Just spray whatever files you need into my home dir, developers, be my guest…
[1] https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/latest/a...
[2] https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Ma...
E.G: I used to "spray my files in the home dir" for my apps, until I discovered "appdirs" (https://pypi.org/project/appdirs/1.4.0/). Once I had an easy way to always has a clean and correct path for my app config/data/tmp file, I just used it.
If anything this would discourage more programs from adopting the xdg spec though.
I install my dotfiles globally into the system for the programs I care about with a simple shell script. Our desktops/laptops are usually all single user these days anyway, I don't see the point in trying to constrain things to a home directory. The nice things about this is that I can nuke my home directory when I feel like it, this is especially useful for programs I just want to reset without figuring out where they've littered all their configs... obviously you need to keep the dotfile repo outside of the home directory for that.
Make issues on GitHub and hope for the best. Most of the time it's already a "I don't care, won't fix".
Apparently people just don't care that I have .cache mapped to a tmpfs and they don't care that their cache stored in .config or .shitappdevelopersinc is thrashing my remote backups.
This and the security free-for-all that programs enjoy come from a simpler, more naive time in personal computing. Personally, I think one of the few things mobile OSs get right[0] is the idea that applications cannot be trusted to behave and the default should be to keep them in their own little sandbox until the user says otherwise. Launch them in their own namespace with only the things you want them to have access to mapped in or redirected as per your preference.
[0] I have issues with the implementation, but the idea is sound.