Gravatar is an awesome platform in itself. It's great for those who aren't new to it.

While checking Gravatar for an existing image could very well be a viable core functionality, WordPress should have a local core avatar system rather than having a third-party solution as the default.

Replacing default avatars with Gravatar should be a Jetpack feature, maybe also offered as a stand-alone (light) plugin, but not the default WP option.

In that sense, Gravatar, as is now, very much piggybacks on the self-hosted open-source community.

A conflict of interest and part of (WP) history forgotten.

As a user I couldn't imagine life without Gravatar because it makes life easier. I'm more than happy to sign up somewhere, also not WP sites, and note that Gravatar is integrated.

As such I think WP core should check for an existing Gravatar profile image and then ask 'We found this profile image for the email address you signed up with. Do you want to use your Gravatar profile also for this site [or do you wish to upload another profile image here]?'

It *is* good UX... for Gravatar users.

As a free mind though... to force a third-party solution as default upon each install, more so a third party solution which requires users to go off-site, for a local avatar is horrible a solution.

Yet, it seems the centralized login mentality is deeply rooted at Automattic as was obvious as well when a WordPress.com account was suddenly required for WooCommerce.

It somehow almost feels as if there is a conflict of interest somewhere between the world's of .com and .org.

Freedom of choice, more so independence of 3rd-party solutions, should be at the core of WordPress.org.

Gravatar as default is not necessarily compliant with that spirit IMHO. I should not have to look away from a self-hosted install for a self-hosted avatar.