4 ms·

The web is a garbage ecosystem now. The sad thing is that it would take only about twenty of you people, you who came across this post on HN today and are now

The web is a garbage ecosystem now. The sad thing is that it would take only about twenty of you people, you who came across this post on HN today and are now reading this comment, to build an alternative ecosystem.

nolroz 2y ago
Hat tossed!
krapp 2y ago
They did, it's called gemini: https://geminiprotocol.net/ https://geminiprotocol.net/
- fragmede 2y ago
  Where they're coming from is great but as someone unfamiliar with what it is (needs a name change in the face of Google Gemini) that landing page isn't a moving introduction to the project. (hint: The FAQ page is for follow-up questions after I've been told what the thing is and I have questions, not to tell me what the thing is)
  - thomassmith65 2y ago
    Gemini's inspiration was the "gopher" protocol from the early 1990s. Gopher was a text-only precursor to the web - plain text with highlighted clickable text links. If you've ever used an ancient library computer (green and black display), their UI was essentially the same as gopher.
    - fragmede 2y ago
      it's not their fault Google came along and used that name, but they did, so here we are.
      - krapp 2y ago
        To be fair, names based on Greek and Roman mythology were overplayed back when NASA was using them. Calling anything "Gemini" is about as uncreative as one can get.
- thomassmith65 2y ago
  I actually considered linking to gemini in my comment! The reason I didn't is to avoid a discussion of how I personally would design tools for an alternate web. I think gemini is a step in the right direction, but not enough to supplant the web for a large enough minority of users. Not that it takes many users - the web was vibrant in 1995 with 100x fewer people on it than today. I don't know that the specific qualities I personally would want for a web replacement are the right ones for everybody, but I would add to the philosophy of gemini some sort of control - not necessarily centralized - to curb commercial activity and abuse. To attract users, it would also need more cultural cache than Gemini. There wouldn't be much content on it at first - unless its design found a loophole to facilitate piracy - so its early adopters would need to feel like they were part of some exclusive community.
  - zzo38computer 2y ago
    > The reason I didn't is to avoid a discussion of how I personally would design tools for an alternate web. Nevertheless, it can be of interest, in case someone does have the ideas. (I have seen other stuff in Hacker News and elsewhere, too.) What are the specific qualities you personally would want for a web replacement? (You are probably right that they are not the right ones for everybody, but still it might be worth to mention.) About control, to curb commercial activity and abuse, how would you expect that it should be done? (For most things the existing security is good enough but for commercial business you will want a better security for the purpose of the identification. But, maybe you have other ideas.) I also have my own ideas for what I would want for a web replacement too (but, like Gemini, it does not have to destroy or be mutually exclusive with WWW or with anything else; see Gemini protocol FAQ 1.13), which I had made available (I wrote Scorpion protocol/file-format specification document). One thing is that, it shouldn't be between Gopher (or Gemini) and WWW; instead it should be between Gemini and "WWW as it should be if it was designed better". (Also, Gemini protocol can be made by making a TLS connection to port 1965 and then send the URL and a carriage return and line feed. This is a simplified explanation, but it is good enough to find the specification document in case you want to access it directly rather than HTTPS or something else.) (Also note: I think that non-extensibility of Gemini protocol/file-format does not really work so well as they had expected. Some files do use extensions not mentioned in there, such as SGR codes. There are also many other ways to put extensions, such as into the X.509 certificate (and since TLS is mandatory, such a thing will always be available), as hidden Unicode characters (since they insist on using Unicode), trailing spaces (like ProleText does), and other ways.)
- agumonkey 2y ago
  I loved the idea, but after testing a bit, I found it was too alienating (coming from someone who likes ed, sed and vi). Especially the searching / browsing ergonomics. Maybe there was some news there ?
aklemm 2y ago
20 engineers are going to solve misaligned incentives and bot automation?
- thomassmith65 2y ago
  20 people would have an impossible time trying to fix the existing web because they would be up against FA*NG companies etc. But if 20 people design an alternate system (protocol, browser, security features, etc) from scratch, and their incentives are right, yes they could come up with decent protections against users with bad incentives and against bots.

nolroz 2y ago

Hat tossed!

krapp 2y ago

They did, it's called gemini: https://geminiprotocol.net/ https://geminiprotocol.net/

fragmede 2y ago
Where they're coming from is great but as someone unfamiliar with what it is (needs a name change in the face of Google Gemini) that landing page isn't a moving introduction to the project. (hint: The FAQ page is for follow-up questions after I've been told what the thing is and I have questions, not to tell me what the thing is)
- thomassmith65 2y ago
  Gemini's inspiration was the "gopher" protocol from the early 1990s. Gopher was a text-only precursor to the web - plain text with highlighted clickable text links. If you've ever used an ancient library computer (green and black display), their UI was essentially the same as gopher.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    it's not their fault Google came along and used that name, but they did, so here we are.
    - krapp 2y ago
      To be fair, names based on Greek and Roman mythology were overplayed back when NASA was using them. Calling anything "Gemini" is about as uncreative as one can get.
thomassmith65 2y ago
I actually considered linking to gemini in my comment! The reason I didn't is to avoid a discussion of how I personally would design tools for an alternate web. I think gemini is a step in the right direction, but not enough to supplant the web for a large enough minority of users. Not that it takes many users - the web was vibrant in 1995 with 100x fewer people on it than today. I don't know that the specific qualities I personally would want for a web replacement are the right ones for everybody, but I would add to the philosophy of gemini some sort of control - not necessarily centralized - to curb commercial activity and abuse. To attract users, it would also need more cultural cache than Gemini. There wouldn't be much content on it at first - unless its design found a loophole to facilitate piracy - so its early adopters would need to feel like they were part of some exclusive community.
- zzo38computer 2y ago
  > The reason I didn't is to avoid a discussion of how I personally would design tools for an alternate web. Nevertheless, it can be of interest, in case someone does have the ideas. (I have seen other stuff in Hacker News and elsewhere, too.) What are the specific qualities you personally would want for a web replacement? (You are probably right that they are not the right ones for everybody, but still it might be worth to mention.) About control, to curb commercial activity and abuse, how would you expect that it should be done? (For most things the existing security is good enough but for commercial business you will want a better security for the purpose of the identification. But, maybe you have other ideas.) I also have my own ideas for what I would want for a web replacement too (but, like Gemini, it does not have to destroy or be mutually exclusive with WWW or with anything else; see Gemini protocol FAQ 1.13), which I had made available (I wrote Scorpion protocol/file-format specification document). One thing is that, it shouldn't be between Gopher (or Gemini) and WWW; instead it should be between Gemini and "WWW as it should be if it was designed better". (Also, Gemini protocol can be made by making a TLS connection to port 1965 and then send the URL and a carriage return and line feed. This is a simplified explanation, but it is good enough to find the specification document in case you want to access it directly rather than HTTPS or something else.) (Also note: I think that non-extensibility of Gemini protocol/file-format does not really work so well as they had expected. Some files do use extensions not mentioned in there, such as SGR codes. There are also many other ways to put extensions, such as into the X.509 certificate (and since TLS is mandatory, such a thing will always be available), as hidden Unicode characters (since they insist on using Unicode), trailing spaces (like ProleText does), and other ways.)
agumonkey 2y ago
I loved the idea, but after testing a bit, I found it was too alienating (coming from someone who likes ed, sed and vi). Especially the searching / browsing ergonomics. Maybe there was some news there ?

aklemm 2y ago

20 engineers are going to solve misaligned incentives and bot automation?

thomassmith65 2y ago
20 people would have an impossible time trying to fix the existing web because they would be up against FA*NG companies etc. But if 20 people design an alternate system (protocol, browser, security features, etc) from scratch, and their incentives are right, yes they could come up with decent protections against users with bad incentives and against bots.