Reflections on the Gemini protocol

I think Gemini is a sterile protocol, that from the outside looks great, in the same way minimalism does... but doesn't change the way I use the web. I also think it was a flash in the pan source of entertainment for personal web folks during COVID 19. I haven't used Gemini since late 2022... I think.

For those not in the know, Gemini is a protocol that acts as a sort of "updated Gopher protocol". As a protocol it effectively just provides text that you can hyperlink to other text-based pages in a very similar way to Gopher(without all the old cruft and 80 character line limits). It provides this text in a markdown format called gemtext, which I do actually think is good, but more on that later.

Gemini occupies an awkward position. The main usecase of Gemini is by hobbyists who host their blogs on it. Gopher came before RSS feeds were a thing, so it made sense then... but nowadays Gemini doesn't offer much over RSS feeds. For most blogs, they will be better served by providing an RSS feed, and most blogs that attempt to support Gemini, tend to mirror it across a HTTP site, an RSS feed and in their Gemini capsule(Capsules are basically the same as websites). Because of this, it ends up being duplicated effort, which if you have a website with CSS and a navbar, it becomes tricky to support Gemini. Because of this difficulty, and because it's duplicated effort, I don't mirror this site on Gemini.

For Gemini, I think there are two advantages to it, but these are advantages of the Protocol, and they do not materialise into anything meaningful for the average user. Only software developers will really appreciate them. The first advantage is that it highlights how bloated the HTTP protocol is. By this, I mean that a Gemini browser can be a weekend programming challenge, while a HTTP browser is not. The only HTTP browser made from scratch I'm aware of is Ladybird. This advantage means you are spoilt for choice on Gemini browsers. Gemini Servers also benefit similarly(and anyone who has had the frustrations of dealing with Apache2 or Nginx or anything else for HTTP sites, and LetsEncrypt for HTTPS certifications will see how this is a big benefit). The many choices of server software means getting to try Gemini is fairly easy... which I think is a big part of its popularity during COVID 19.

The other advantage is the lack of trackers and cookies. There's not much to say about it, other than it's more privacy oriented, however if you find yourself wanting cookies(as they are quite useful for user logins) you won't have this on Gemini, which ultimately makes anything dynamic on Gemini very tedious.

What about Gemtext? Gemtext is just a markdown format, and you can use it elsewhere outside of the Gemini protocol if you want. On my blog I use a modified form of the Gemtext format, with extensions for HTML(so I can include embeds and iframes) and images. Ultimately there are parts of it that do grate, the lack of inline linking is sometimes frustrating. And as a result, it ends up with people writing their documents in a more academic way, with the body text, and then with all links and citations at the end. Ultimately I think HTML is the more useful language, and if you like the simplicity of Gemtext(as I do), you can just make a HTML converter for it.

As Gemini is very related to the whole personal web movement, I also think it's worth mentioning that most of the benefits of Gemini being all personal capsules, is replicated by webrings. There is no shortage of webrings linked on sites on Neocities, and you can also find on my site a few webrings to start exploring that side of the internet if you're interested.

I'm open to hearing any other benefits Gemini provides that HTTP doesn't have.

Links