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Having been doing the Gemini capsule thing for about six months now, it’s been an enjoyable experience. I do like the slower, quieter, non-corporate atmosphere. Capsules are pleasant passion projects by people having fun with the technology. It’s a refreshing change from the web where so much of the content there is about making a buck and / or is a bloated mess
There are obviously a lot less people here than there are on the web, and I like it that way. I know there are people happy to shout from the highest mountain about how wonderful Gemini is. I certainly share their sentiment, but I’m also fine with it being something destined to be a lot more niche than WWW Land. Conversely, I can’t say that I agree with some of the fence sitters and those that aren’t keen on the protocol, and say that people should just stick with HTTP, especially when they argue that Gemini is doomed to obscurity.
I’m actually okay with the relative obscurity. Being old enough to remember the early days of the web, I miss the quiet one could enjoy then. There wasn’t as many people around simply because a sizable chunk of the population did not have internet access at the time. The web was dominated by a nerdy, tech-centric cohort while the masses were busy watching network television and listening to top 40 radio. It largely stayed that way until probably the early to mid 00s when internet adoption spread like wildfire.
Now the web is overrun by the general population. I hear lots of people ask if people have suddenly become stupider in recent years, or were there always a ton of dummies walking among us, but we didn’t notice because they weren’t yet on the web aggressively sharing their ill-informed opinions. I’m inclined to believe that the latter is quite true and we see it on sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit where they congregate en masse every single day. Is it really so bad that these people are not likely to come flocking to Gemini space?
I guess it comes down to how much scale matters to a project and someone who decides to make a capsule. For a giant corporation, scale is obviously very important. They want their product in front of as many eyes as possible. If Apple has a new widget that they want to sell, the company will put information about it in places heavily trafficked in order to get as many people as possible. Google wants as many users as possible in order to sell as many ads as possible / have as much user data to sell as possible. Throughout the corporate world scale matters.
For the average person, and certainly one inclined to cobble together a Gemini capsule, there is a good chance that isn’t the case. The vast majority of capsules’ content in this realm are people gathering their thoughts on a given topic who then cast them off into the ether. We have no idea how many people are reading what we post. There may be some basic information from our server analytics that tell us how much data has been going out or how much our CPU has been used. We may even get an occasional email from someone about our capsule. That’s about it, though.
People who operate a Gemini capsule aren’t looking for validation from anyone or concerned about views. They would be on the web running a YouTube channel or something if that was what they were looking for. It’s a big part of what makes it so nice to be in this sphere. People are just doing what they are interested in, metrics be damned. This is what I think will create a long lasting appeal for the Gemini protocol. The people posting stuff here are doing so in a very real, heartfelt way that has largely been lost on the web.
Oddly, this whole Gemini vs the web thing has also gotten me thinking that maybe a barrier to entry isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Accessibility has been the dominant mantra of the web for a while. However, if a lack of accessibility keeps dopey people who spend most of their time on the web vomiting out questionable hot takes away from Gemini, is that really a bad thing? Setting up a capsule takes a bit of effort, certainly more than a YouTube channel or WordPress blog (just don’t T_T ...). So, on the content creation side it keeps people away. Meanwhile, the heavily text-centric nature of Gemini will limit those likely to visit, as a lot of people will find the aesthetic unappealing. So, by its nature, the protocol keeps a fair number of potentially very dopey people away.
On the other hand, it may keep some perfectly a-okay people away as well. I guess it just comes down to how much healthy material also needs to be cut away when removing a cancer. I think that the web has gone downhill a lot since regular folk swarmed into it. The fun, thoughtful, sometimes wild west days are gone in favor of a number of elements that reflect most of humanities worst character flaws. Gemini hasn’t been overrun by this yet, and given the reduced accessibility of it, I don’t think it ever will.
Corporations’ obsession with scale has permeated into web users’ mentalities whereby they obsess about it as well. Yes, there is a time and a place for it, and it’s called the web. Let Gemini be a realm for people who want to get away from that sort of thing and all of the problems that come with it. Given the sheer number of people on the internet today, Gemini can flourish just fine as a pleasant niche alternative to the web.
Pennywhether
pennywhether@posteo.net
September 16, 2021