On Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 08:31:17AM +0200, 'Stephane Bortzmeyer' wrote:
> I don't know if a researcher already did a survey of geminauts, and of
> their age. Are they old people nostalgic of the beginning or young
> people eager to revolutionize "Dad's Web"? I was also a Usenet admin
> at the time of C&S.
20yo here. My first exposure to the Web was Playhouse Disney's flash games
when I was 4 (around 2004 I think) and I first published my Gemlog in
November 2020. I was introduced to Gemini when I was 19 by a 17-year-old
over IRC; IDK what she's up to right now.
My computing preferences aren't exactly "modern": I dislike the modern Web
and most GUIs, preferring to stick to CLI and TUI programs (in that
order.), and think that people shouldn't have to "upgrade" their computers
unless their use-cases change. Naturally, this drew me into Gopher and
Gemini. I'd been lurking in a few Gopherholes for a couple years before
being introduced to Gemini.
After seeing some bloggers I followed set up Gemlogs and seeing Gemini
brought up on the Fediverse a few times, I decided to finally set up a
{Gem,Web}log (seirdy.one) on a VPS. It's been a great experience so far.
The main appeal of Gemini to me isn't related to the "old web"; it's that
presentation is up to the user agent, not the author. Authors only control
content, not form. Normally I have to cross my fingers and hope a page
works in retawq or NetSurf before loading it in Firefox, flipping a bunch
of uMatrix switches, and seeing if my dark-mode addon broke anything.
Gemini "just works": if I click a Gemini link, I'll know I won't have to
jump through any hoops or tank my battery life.
While the "old web" tends to work well in textual browsers, it still
shares the problem of presentation dictated by authors AFAICT.
-- /Seirdy
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