Gemini is Solutionism

That's true, but it's based on opportunistic guesses, not semantics, which prevents many use-cases (including alt-text for accessibility of images). For example, we could do the same with video, but what about alternative soundtracks/captions? HTML has and . Building a browser based on auto-guessing which link is related to which one and what the relationship is between those is... hazardous in my view.

> this allows the user to be in control over how these potentially abusable externalities should be handled, rather than ceding that control to the webmaster

I love that argument! But that was also the premise for the web, and i don't understand why we're not enforcing it there. CSS was supposed to permit user stylesheets, and JS empower users to script their interactions with the server. I would argue the problem with the web is it has moved away from declarative to imperative model where the server dictates your rendering. I can see how gemini addresses this by removing extensible declarative elements altogether, but i don't think that's the only way.

Personally, i think adding more semantic elements in HTML (eg. no-JS web components) would make client-side sheets more realistic while allowing the webmaster to propose a specific stylesheet for their recommended UI/UX. Removing the semantics is not gonna help empower clients, except when it comes to plaintext content. So, adding a new content-type over HTTP? Sure. Just throw in some CommonMark: it's well-specified and more or less complete (depending on your use-case). Adding a simpler protocol for delivering content? Why not, but it's not that easy to future-proof: HTTP is arguably more complex, but has some interesting properties such as content-type/encoding negociation or decoupling from transport security (for .onion/.i2p/DANE or any other future technology).

Just to be clear i like gemini very much and i've been wanting to support gemlog to my blog for a while. I just think there's room for some other technical foundations to explore the political promises of gemini.

Why would an advertiser do this? Advertisers are typically in leauge with site operators. Site operators just tell them this data (maybe with rare exceptions like superphish). Advertisers don't do this because they don't need to.

Advertisers are not the adversary tls is meant to thrawt. You don't use the lock on your door to thrawt the person who you invited in and opened the door for.

> Not every site requires SNI (yet "modern" browsers send it anyway).

Its difficult to tell if a site needs it or not at the stage where you send it. The current solution seems to be custom dns records (e.g. what ECH is doing last time i looked)

> Tell us how to reliably^1 translate any IP to a domainname at the same speed as one can sniff SNI, and with no extra effort.

The traditional answer is to just sniff the dns traffic.

Otherwise (e.g. if using DoH) just create a db of popular sites you care about. This is not trivial, but still quite easy and the easiest part of the attack being discussed by far.

> If whatever you want to happen is threatened by Gemini

I don't think you're conceptualizing the criticism correctly. This is not "B is better than A". This is a case where B never comes along because A exists. The person who would otherwise catalyze B's existence and success doesn't, because they think that A is sufficient and/or anyone they might talk to about B would just respond, "I dunno; isn't that what A is for?" You can see this with Mozilla, for example. (As a former Mozillian, that's what I had in mind at the time I wrote the linked blog post.) I have become especially sensitive to this after my experience between 2006–2013 and seeing the contrast of that time period vs Mozilla's role over the last 10 years—which is basically a black hole that keeps people from effectively organizing anything that resembles the early days of Firefox development. I recognized something similar after moving to Austin in 2014 and signing up for lots of volunteer events that were by-and-large just organized to be ways for affluent young professionals to feel like they're doing good by burning their attention surpluses, whether or not any of those events were actually a worthwhile use of those resources. See also:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3p3CYauiX8oLjmwRF/purchase-f...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10029811

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7302645

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/plastic-wars/

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-...

> If you want to wait until everyone else stops trying new ideas

That's the opposite of my position—which is that Gemini is sucking the air out of the room.

That's another discussion altogether. I agree Gemini is too limited, and I said as much in another comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30069716

The fact that Gemini is not what I want does not invalidate the opinion that the web is broken, and Gemini provides answers for that in its niche. Likewise, other people wanting other things doesn't invalidate anything. We don't exactly have to choose one technology and solve all the world's problems with it. I'm ok with Gemini being what it is and I'm not pretending it is (nor should it be) everything for everyone. It's not much for me, but it's something.