I mostly interact with SW on a laptop, so the waste of screen space doesn't bother me much. But I want to address what I'm guessing is the purpose of the user stripe. I think the admins want to get us finding other conversations to involve ourselves in. I think the admins are looking for higher engagement with the site.
And that, if true, tells me the feed isn't working the way they would like; the feed isn't finding interesting new conversations for us. So maybe that's another way to boost engagement.
Recently the admins actually removed my favorite method for finding other conversations. I used to go to https://similarworlds.com/new-posts/ and that would show me all new posts. Some I couldn't read because the person had blocked me, but it was my favorite way to find a random conversation. How about it andrew & nuno? Bring back https://similarworlds.com/new-posts/ maybe??