2020-07-24-Trying-to-explain-Gemini-to-someone

I'm an active user on

Tildes, a kind of alternative to Reddit.

I said something about Gemini on one of the threads and got this question in response:

> I want to get in to Gemini/Gopher but I'm not sure I get it.

> Why should I use Gemini/Gopher?

by @rmgr

I replied as best I could, which I'll quote here. My response is also at this link:

https://tildes.net/~talk/qsw#comment-5dzl

It turns out explaining what I like about Gemini is kind of complicated and nebulous!

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I don't know if I can speak to why you *should* use Gemini/Gopher -- there's no real reason -- but I can tell you why I like them and use them (really I just use gemini -- gophermaps never clicked with me, writing-wise, though sometimes I read some phlogs):

The Web, as it is now, is big and hairy. It's owned mostly by, like, 5 giant companies that track you every chance they get. They commoditize people and ideas and repackage them as "content".

The Web, as it is now, is also largely *bloated*. Web pages take seconds to load, largely because of all the tracking stuff I just mentioned. The Web was built as a document-sharing system but it's grown into its own operating system.

Of course, I still use the Web every day -- I use it for work, for fun, I'm using it *now*, etc. There are good parts to the Web -- tildes is one of them, and there are a lot of personal websites that are nice or fun or just non-commercial spaces that I really appreciate.

So you might be thinking, "Why not just have a 'small web' space, or somewhere that's not commercial?" Well, you *can*! There's no one stopping us. There's the IndieWeb and Fediverse and all sorts of things that are trying to move toward a more sustainable, more human, less commercial web.

However, it's still the **Web**. You can still too easily jump out of that safe space into the wider world of trackers and javascript autoplaying videos and selling you stuff you don't need.

Using text-based protocols, like Gopher and Gemini, build that wall between the "small web" (some call it the *smol web*) and the big bad Web a little higher -- while you can link to HTTP content from either (it's *really* easy in Gemini), it'll be more obvious that you're about to head to a different space -- it's right there in the protocol. Whereas linking from the "safe Web" to the "unsafe Web" is more complicated -- you'd have to have a list of "safe" websites, either in your head or downloaded from somewhere, to check against. And what do you do if safesite.com is bought out by MegaCorp? Then MegaCorp can inject it with all sorts of trackers/webworkers/whatever so that what *was* a safe link isn't any more.

With a text-only protocol like Gopher or Gemini, it's actually impossible -- or really, really hard -- to track people in the same way as it is on the Web. The protocol -- the language servers and clients speak -- simply doesn't allow it. There's no word for it in the language.

What I really like about Gemini is that it *explicitly* states that it's a protocol *alongside* the Web -- which means that, even if it gets really popular, commercial interests have less of a reason to try and commoditize it, since they'll still have all the tracking and stuff they love on the Web. It won't be worth it for them to figure out how to commercialize Geminispace.

AND, because it's text-only (no inline images, etc), one of the main vectors of advertising -- the image -- is unable to hijack your attention. Users *know* what they're getting into, all the time. I like that a lot.

I hope that explains it a little bit. If you like writing and reading, and small communities, Gemini can be a lot of fun. I've been in a few sort of "threads" where I'll post something on my site, then it'll be responded to, and I'll respond back, kind of like linkbacks on blogs or whatever. It's also great to read about other people's hobbies and interests and projects they're working on.

So basically, Gemini and Gopher are different protocols, like the Web, but either designed before the Web (Gopher) or designed in response to the Web (Gemini) in a way that they create sort of intentional communities. Or something.

For more information, you can see

this post by solderpunk,

the originator of Gemini, that talks about why a "safe web" isn't really a doable goal. I'll think if there are others and link them here too.

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