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Gemini is Solutionism

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Re: Gemini is Solutionism

#121

Post by foxfluff »

sertraline wrote: post #88

>it certainly does not justify completely replacing existing infrastructure and standards that humans have mutually agreed upon. It does, it makes sense. These standards led us to everything that has ruined the old web, it led us to corporate controlled Internet where few major websites aggregate 80% of the content. It led us to scroll-jacking, bot-driven, located behind firewalls and captchas websites where genuine…

> how many pages of web standards you have to implement and comply with if you want to make your own browser, just to visit google dot com?

Worse yet, it is precisely those standards that enable google dot com to discriminate and block your new browser. For your security, you know..

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30051512

Re: Gemini is Solutionism

#122

Post by 2pEXgD0fZ5cF »

This post made me pretty interested in gemini.

Since there are apparently a few users here: What server would you recommend to get started? Any small tutorials on setting up a gemini site? Any links to gemini sites (maybe your own) you want to share?

Re: Gemini is Solutionism

#123

Post by gkbrk »

dopidopHN wrote: post #43
elteto wrote: post #7

I wondered the same thing... why invent a whole new thing? Making a web browser capable of displaying the Internet circa 1999 is not trivial but it is far, far, far easier than building a modern one. Let's keep it simple: HTTP 1.1, HTML, CSS 1 (maybe), _no_ JS.

The spec of Gemini state that a Gemini web client should be writable as a weekend project for a experienced dev.

Very impressive that people can write TLS clients in a weekend, on top of building Gemini clients and Gemtext parsers.

Re: Gemini is Solutionism

#124

Post by piaste »

wmf wrote: post #30
adamrezich wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s more than solutionism, it’s elitism. > elitism (n.) the advocacy or existence of an elite as a dominating element in a system or society. where does this idea come from? why can't people make their own spaces in their own corners of the Internet without being considered "elitist?" is HN "elitist"? 4chan? Usenet? ZeroNet?

Text-only content is elitist ever since the masses started expecting everything to be video or at least have some stock images.

Pictura est laicorum literatura, 1000 years later.

Re: Gemini is Solutionism

#125

Post by flohofwoe »

foxfluff wrote: post #114

> Bottom line is, if you agree that the modern web has become an awful place, let’s work on changing that for everyone, instead of abandoning it like a bunch of billionaires trying to escape to a different place, before this one collapses. The implication being that the web can be changed? I don't believe that, I believe the web is broken and it's only getting worse by the day. I'm not going to discourage you from tr…

Disclaimer: I haven't (consciously) heard of this Gemini thing before, but:

> I'm guaranteed to not be flooded with ads, ...

I guarantee this will only be true until it becomes popular enough to be a juicy target for the more - uhm - "business-oriented" people, it's not because of a restricted feature set.

Creating a technology which is intentionally uninteresting to business is an interesting angle of course which I can get behind ;)

Re: Gemini is Solutionism

#126

Post by zppln »

barakm wrote: post #3

You’re entirely right; the sole reason for Gemini is to exclude people. It’s more than solutionism, it’s elitism. It’s some people hiding their content to the quote-unquote “cool” kids and claiming it’s a “better” solution just because the primary clients are terminal based. Which is why nothing of value is lost by ignoring it, IMO.

Meh, everyone doesn't have to cater to the lowest common denominator all the time. Besides, I can't say I find the geminispehere very elitist or excluding after browsing it on and off for a year or so. There are no gatekeepers apart from accepting the technology itself.

Re: Gemini is Solutionism

#127

Post by s5806533 »

The_Colonel wrote: post #92
dopidopHN wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The spec of Gemini state that a Gemini web client should be writable as a weekend project for a experienced dev.

Having this as a priority nicely demonstrates how dev-centric and user-ignorant this project is.

The distinction between devs and users is less sharp when everything is as simple as the Gemini ecosystem. And that is precisely what they want: technology that is resilient and does not (and will never) depend on a caste of specialists and large corporations such as Google, like the web does.

Re: Gemini is Solutionism

#128

Post by tpoacher »

square_usual wrote: post #50

I agree with the author, but from a different direction. The Gemini community has this ethos that stripping away all the styling etc. makes the internet about "content" again. Setting aside for the moment that the definition that content = text is unnecessarily reductive (and insulting to other forms of content - is a beautiful animation not content? is an interactive map of a country showing how covid is affecting i…

> is a beautiful animation not content? is an interactive map of a country showing how covid is affecting it not content?

Gemini does not prevent you from having any of those things. It simply enforces a separation of those experiences from the text.

The reason this is a bad thing, is because you cannot use interactive maps and animations to create rich user experiences.

The reason this is a good thing, is because you cannot use interactive maps and animations to create "rich" user experiences.

Re: Gemini is Solutionism

#129

Post by robalni »

> The question here shouldn’t be why not to use a subset of HTTP and HTML, but rather, why not build on top of HTTP with a different markup layer other than HTML. We have APIs using HTTP with JSON instead of HTML, for example.

As you can read in the Gemini FAQ, the reason that Gemini is not compatible with HTTP is that it should be possible to know that when you browse Gemini content, you will stay in gemini content. If Gemini were compatible with HTTP, then when you make a Gemini website, you know that many people who use it probably are using HTTP browsers, so it will be easier to mix Gemini with HTTP links which means that Gemini users will be more exposed to the type of content that they were trying to avoid by using Gemini.

If Gemini instead is incompatible with HTTP, it will be harder for site owners to put a HTTP link on their Gemini site because they don't know how the user's client will handle that.

Maybe the best solution could have been something that makes it easy to get in but not as easy to get out. I mean something like it could be possible to have a HTTP link to a Gemini site that would work in all browsers, but that Gemini site could not have a HTTP link. I just don't know how you would make that.

Re: Gemini is Solutionism

#130

Post by lonecom »

CookieMon wrote: post #119
lonecom wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A Gemini browser cabal where users have only a few choices and they are each controlled by corporations is unlikely. This is the key point. It is like the idea that you don't need the fastest person to escape from a chasing bear, you only need to be faster than the slowest person. A user on the conventional web, is the slowest person here. And thus the success of Gemini browser is dependent on the existence of the s…

Many 'rules' (like one request -> one file) create limitations in Gemini that prevent it from being capable of web-style corporate behaviour, so even if business isn't content with regular web users and doesn't leave Gemini users alone, their options and the damage they can do is hampered (unless co-opting the entire movement). I think the protocol being designed around ensuring it's difficult for sites to exploit vi…

> if business isn't content with regular web users and doesn't leave Gemini users alone, their options and the damage they can do is hampered

I am afraid you are limiting the scope of "exploitation", as enabled by Internet, to those things done by Ad companies like Google family.

But I was mostly referring to the use of Internet for all kinds of exploitation. Think of a seller on amazon putting fake reviews in the web, or deleting actual negative reviews. They won't bother with the Gemini users because there is enough victims on the real web. But if all users are using Gemini clients, then they will be writing fake reviews in Gemini domain.

That is smaller it remains, the less penetration by big business and selfish interests, and thus the more valuable it is, for the person who wants to find real, genuine information.

This also applies to real discussion. People are going to speak freely in Gemini, because there is less chance of encountering an army of shills.

Keep an eye on sites that sell gemini identities with "reputation". Once those start popping up, you ll know its time to move on to something different.

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