5 ms·

How is introducing yet another new technology, incompatible with what everyone else is using, any better than just creating a minimalist static HTML website?

arghwhat 6y ago
Because the problem is the technology everyone else is using The issue isn't bloated websites as much as the web itself.
- aronpye 6y ago
  How is the issue not bloated websites? You can easily create a text only website in HTML which is compatible with every existing internet capable device. All technology can be misused, it isn’t necessarily a problem with the underlying technology. By introducing yet more standards and technologies, you end up creating bloat and fragmentation of a different kind.
  - tryauuum 6y ago
    There is also an allure of having a client that will never run some weird god-know-what-doing javascript code. Of course you can just disable javascript in your HTTP browser. But as the author states, it's easier to write a completely new client than to disable all the bloat in e.g. firefox.
    - aronpye 6y ago
      Agreed, but like I’ve said elsewhere the effort would be better spent modifying an existing browser to be lightweight. That would gain more widespread adoption than a whole new client-server protocol. You’d also gain the benefit of better interoperability with screen readers and such like.
      - vertex-four 6y ago
        Nobody involved in Gemini wants "widespread adoption", because that inevitably means big commercial organisations coming into the space where right now they're having a lovely time building a community. Screen readers handle Gemini just fine - one of the clients I've tried outputs text and buttons in a GTK window, another literally just outputs text into a terminal and takes command line input, if a screenreader couldn't handle that I'd be horrified. The format is paragraph-based, there's very little styling, no guessing at what the main content on a page is.
      - peteyboy 6y ago
        So you say the "effort". There are 50-some line gemini clients, and more than a few people have coded graphical clients in a few days by themselves. Same with servers. Is modifying firefox or palemoon really going to be a "better spent" effort? I think screen readers can read text pretty well, also, since you've declared that to be a goal for some reason.
      - arghwhat 6y ago
        Unfortunately, having worked on both Chromium and Firefox, I can inform you that modifying an existing browser to be lightweight is an unfeasible project. It's a waste of time compared to just making something new. That doesn't mean that normal browsers couldn't also get gopher support for those not interested in a lightweight browser.
  - arghwhat 6y ago
    Your browser is a monster of a machine, even when loading a text-only HTML page. The browser UI itself is a web application, after all. You cannot do anything lightweight with a browser supporting, and itself being written in, web technologies. Fragmentation is intentional. Although, nothing stops a web browser from also gaining gemini/gopher support. Just won't be "minimal".
- jibal 6y ago
  That doesn't answer the question, and doesn't even make sense.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Because the problem is the technology everyone else is using Introducing new technology doesn't change the technology everyone else is using if it doesn’t provide a reason for them to switch. Gemini seems to appeal very much to the issues of a very narrow group of users and, I suspect, an even smaller proportion of content creators. I don't see how it has any effect on the technology everyone else is using.
  - ertian 6y ago
    It's a subculture. I think the key is in the definition of 'everyone'; I doubt anybody imagines everybody in the world switching to Gemini from the web. So 'everyone' in this context means all the people who have collectively agreed to stick to minimal text format. You could try the same thing with a community dedicated to minimal HTML--heck, you could say that's what HN itself is, almost--but it would have no effective border. You'd keep falling back into the bad old web. This makes the border explicit, instead.
    - aronpye 6y ago
      Good point, but I doubt there will be any kind of meaningful adoption, I think the effort would be better spent modding chromium or such like to strip out crap from existing websites rather than creating a new client-server protocol.
      - j4yav 6y ago
        As I understand it they are not aiming for bringing in the masses, so an additional barrier is fine, or even a feature.
  - arghwhat 6y ago
    That's the point. A web browser is a behemoth—the extreme opposite of minimalism and efficiency—and can only grow. Creating an entirely parallel stack is the only way to obtain minimalism at this point. Appealing to those liking web technologies would be counter productive, as they're part of the problem being mitigated.
probably_wrong 6y ago
Because it's not about the individual, but rather it's about the ecosystem. From an individual point of view, there's not much of a difference. If I wanted to migrate my blog to Gemini, it would take very little and it would lose almost nothing. But the second you click a link to another domain you are back in the bloated web. Once you open a Gemini page, however, you know exactly which experience you are getting. No bloated websites are allowed, so you won't see those at all,ever.

arghwhat 6y ago

Because the problem is the technology everyone else is using The issue isn't bloated websites as much as the web itself.

aronpye 6y ago
How is the issue not bloated websites? You can easily create a text only website in HTML which is compatible with every existing internet capable device. All technology can be misused, it isn’t necessarily a problem with the underlying technology. By introducing yet more standards and technologies, you end up creating bloat and fragmentation of a different kind.
- tryauuum 6y ago
  There is also an allure of having a client that will never run some weird god-know-what-doing javascript code. Of course you can just disable javascript in your HTTP browser. But as the author states, it's easier to write a completely new client than to disable all the bloat in e.g. firefox.
  - aronpye 6y ago
    Agreed, but like I’ve said elsewhere the effort would be better spent modifying an existing browser to be lightweight. That would gain more widespread adoption than a whole new client-server protocol. You’d also gain the benefit of better interoperability with screen readers and such like.
    - vertex-four 6y ago
      Nobody involved in Gemini wants "widespread adoption", because that inevitably means big commercial organisations coming into the space where right now they're having a lovely time building a community. Screen readers handle Gemini just fine - one of the clients I've tried outputs text and buttons in a GTK window, another literally just outputs text into a terminal and takes command line input, if a screenreader couldn't handle that I'd be horrified. The format is paragraph-based, there's very little styling, no guessing at what the main content on a page is.
    - peteyboy 6y ago
      So you say the "effort". There are 50-some line gemini clients, and more than a few people have coded graphical clients in a few days by themselves. Same with servers. Is modifying firefox or palemoon really going to be a "better spent" effort? I think screen readers can read text pretty well, also, since you've declared that to be a goal for some reason.
    - arghwhat 6y ago
      Unfortunately, having worked on both Chromium and Firefox, I can inform you that modifying an existing browser to be lightweight is an unfeasible project. It's a waste of time compared to just making something new. That doesn't mean that normal browsers couldn't also get gopher support for those not interested in a lightweight browser.
- arghwhat 6y ago
  Your browser is a monster of a machine, even when loading a text-only HTML page. The browser UI itself is a web application, after all. You cannot do anything lightweight with a browser supporting, and itself being written in, web technologies. Fragmentation is intentional. Although, nothing stops a web browser from also gaining gemini/gopher support. Just won't be "minimal".
jibal 6y ago
That doesn't answer the question, and doesn't even make sense.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Because the problem is the technology everyone else is using Introducing new technology doesn't change the technology everyone else is using if it doesn’t provide a reason for them to switch. Gemini seems to appeal very much to the issues of a very narrow group of users and, I suspect, an even smaller proportion of content creators. I don't see how it has any effect on the technology everyone else is using.
- ertian 6y ago
  It's a subculture. I think the key is in the definition of 'everyone'; I doubt anybody imagines everybody in the world switching to Gemini from the web. So 'everyone' in this context means all the people who have collectively agreed to stick to minimal text format. You could try the same thing with a community dedicated to minimal HTML--heck, you could say that's what HN itself is, almost--but it would have no effective border. You'd keep falling back into the bad old web. This makes the border explicit, instead.
  - aronpye 6y ago
    Good point, but I doubt there will be any kind of meaningful adoption, I think the effort would be better spent modding chromium or such like to strip out crap from existing websites rather than creating a new client-server protocol.
    - j4yav 6y ago
      As I understand it they are not aiming for bringing in the masses, so an additional barrier is fine, or even a feature.
- arghwhat 6y ago
  That's the point. A web browser is a behemoth—the extreme opposite of minimalism and efficiency—and can only grow. Creating an entirely parallel stack is the only way to obtain minimalism at this point. Appealing to those liking web technologies would be counter productive, as they're part of the problem being mitigated.

probably_wrong 6y ago

Because it's not about the individual, but rather it's about the ecosystem. From an individual point of view, there's not much of a difference. If I wanted to migrate my blog to Gemini, it would take very little and it would lose almost nothing. But the second you click a link to another domain you are back in the bloated web. Once you open a Gemini page, however, you know exactly which experience you are getting. No bloated websites are allowed, so you won't see those at all,ever.