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The analogy with the useless tree breaks down because gemini still has to be useful to some people. I can understand the tree living as an end in itself, less s

The analogy with the useless tree breaks down because gemini still has to be useful to some people. I can understand the tree living as an end in itself, less so for a web protocol. Gemini has a mission and if it's usage is too restricted it will barely be a safe space for anybody because barely anybody will be using it. It's a tradeoff and I can't judge if gemini got it right, but gemini obviously still wants to be useful in similar aspects in which it wants to be useless enough.

krapp 5y ago
>Gemini has a mission and if it's usage is too restricted it will barely be a safe space for anybody because barely anybody will be using it. I think that's the point. When you build a protocol so restrictive and ascetically minimalist that even HN and Lobste.rs, epicenters of the very sort of contrarian tech hipster anti-modernist elitism that brought it about mostly complain about it, it's clear that what you're really optimizing for isn't utility but ideological purity and cultural homogeneity.
- ungamedplayer 5y ago
  TIL: protocols have a cuture.
  - krapp 5y ago
    Protocols can be built to reinforce the ideals of their creators, and thus attempt to create a culture around themselves, yes. For an example of this, see Urbit. Gemini exists to satisfy political and cultural, not technical, needs. Most of what Gemini users have to say regarding their preference for it, and its benefits and its purpose are almost entirely about culture, not technology - the web is too complex, the web is too mainstream, too commercial, no longer a small "quirky" community, too full of the wrong people using it the wrong way. We're here replying to an article whose entire thesis is that Gemini's technical shortcomings, it's "uselessness," is a killer feature for promoting a specific kind of culture, for preventing certain forms of expression and encouraging others, inviting certain kinds of people in, and keeping other kinds of people out. That it will never be extended is a decision based on enforcing culture, in the belief that any extra complexity, regardless of its utility, risks the protocol being used in ways that undermine its ideological basis. So yes, culture.

krapp 5y ago

>Gemini has a mission and if it's usage is too restricted it will barely be a safe space for anybody because barely anybody will be using it. I think that's the point. When you build a protocol so restrictive and ascetically minimalist that even HN and Lobste.rs, epicenters of the very sort of contrarian tech hipster anti-modernist elitism that brought it about mostly complain about it, it's clear that what you're really optimizing for isn't utility but ideological purity and cultural homogeneity.

ungamedplayer 5y ago
TIL: protocols have a cuture.
- krapp 5y ago
  Protocols can be built to reinforce the ideals of their creators, and thus attempt to create a culture around themselves, yes. For an example of this, see Urbit. Gemini exists to satisfy political and cultural, not technical, needs. Most of what Gemini users have to say regarding their preference for it, and its benefits and its purpose are almost entirely about culture, not technology - the web is too complex, the web is too mainstream, too commercial, no longer a small "quirky" community, too full of the wrong people using it the wrong way. We're here replying to an article whose entire thesis is that Gemini's technical shortcomings, it's "uselessness," is a killer feature for promoting a specific kind of culture, for preventing certain forms of expression and encouraging others, inviting certain kinds of people in, and keeping other kinds of people out. That it will never be extended is a decision based on enforcing culture, in the belief that any extra complexity, regardless of its utility, risks the protocol being used in ways that undermine its ideological basis. So yes, culture.