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Why there's a point to alternative protocols and spaces

Matthew Graybosch hello at matthewgraybosch.com

Thu Jun 18 22:02:00 BST 2020

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On Thu, 18 Jun 2020 15:36:54 +0000solderpunk <solderpunk at SDF.ORG> wrote:

I am keen to hear people's thoughts, both on what I've written and on

the question in general, and receive suggestions on what good

responses are to people who ask this question.

I think the general thrust of this post is solid, but I want to addressthis part in particular. Not because I disagree with it, but to providemy own answer.

Why not just build non-evil websites using the existing technology,

instead of building something new from the ground up?

I could, but I don't want to. It's too much like work. (I buildgovernment web apps at my day job.)

HTML is a pain to write.* HTML is a pain to generate from markdown.* HTML is a pain to style with CSS.* CSS is a pain to write.* Semantic markup is a pain.* Worrying about desktop vs mobile is a pain.* SEO is a pain.* Knowing that Google will bury your site to push ads is infuriating.* Knowing that social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter seeindependent websites as nothing but resources to plunder is infuriating.* I'm tired of trying to help preserve a document-oriented web when thevast majority either want the web to be about apps or a la carte cableTV with a comment section.

TBH, I like that the Gemini scene has the sort ofunderground/DIY/zine/samizdat vibe that it does. I like plain text. If Istill thought doing websites with a "safe subset" of HTML and CSS wasworthwhile I'd still be doing that.

Instead, I'm here.

-- Matthew Graybosch gemini://starbreaker.org#include <disclaimer.h> gemini://demifiend.orghttps://matthewgraybosch.com gemini://tanelorn.city"Out of order?! Even in the future nothing works."