💾 Archived View for jsreed5.org › log › 2023 › 202306 › 20230620-geminis-fourth-anniversary.gmi captured on 2023-07-10 at 13:38:51. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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The Gemini protocol was first publicly announced under the name "Gemini" on this day in 2019. solderpunk considers this to the official start date of the protocol, meaning today is its fourth anniversary.
From my earliest days on Gemini, I knew the protocol dated back to 2019, but last night I got to thinking about what that really means.
I first explored Gemini and decided to create my own capsule in March of 2021. By then, COVID-19 had been ravaging the world for more than a year. Many businesses were still shuttered, many areas were still in full lockdown, and most people still practiced social distancing. We were forced to carry out most of our communication through social media and other online platforms controlled by corporate interests. The Reddit post became our only source of news, the Netflix subscription our only form of entertainment. And in that isolated environment, political and social tensions spilled over, fresh on the heels of the George Floyd protests and riots on one side and the contentious US Presidential election and January 6 protests and riots on the other.
The negativity and toxic discourse surrounding almost every event in those days drove me to seek an escape. For my own sanity, I needed to find a space that was quiet and allowed me to unwind. Gopher was that space initially, until I discovered and fell in love with Gemini.
Since the global COVID-19 pandemic struck so soon after the Gemini protocol was introduced, I feel the history of the protocol--and its community--has largely been defined by the community's response to the pandemic. But that's not the environment in which Gemini was created.
solderpunk states in one early phlog that he loves Gopher and hates the modern Web. Gemini began as a thought experiment on improving what solderpunk viewed as shortcomings in the Gopher protocol, rather than trying to strip back the Web into something more manageable. This thought experiment came from a passion for Gopher and an effort to make something Gopher-like that's just a little more powerful.
In 2019 the Internet was already a focal point of modern life, but I feel our relationship with the Internet fundamentally changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was no longer simply a place to hang out and consume content during our off-time, while otherwise working at an office or visiting family and friends. By choice or not, we became utterly reliant on it, a critical lifeline to news about the world in a time when we couldn't or wouldn't go out ourselves. As such, we were more fully exposed than ever to the pitfalls of the modern Web. I think it's no coincidence that in the aftermath, more and more of my friends are closing their Facebook accounts and and leaving Twitter and Instagram behind.
I also think this distaste for what the Internet has become is shaping people's expectations for Gemini. Many articles and videos wax lyrical for Gemini, proclaiming that it's "like the Web but better". That is fundamentally untrue, and I suspect that many of the complaints about Gemini come from this false assumption. Gemini is not, and never was, meant to be "like the Web", and I doubt the protocol can ever grow to the point of being a drop-in replacement for the Web. But that's okay--Gemini was never trying to do that.
I suppose, in that respect, the COVID-19 pandemic did a disservice to Gemini. Many people have come to the protocol looking for something to replace the Web with, and what they discover is a tiny hobbyist community more interested in exploring the limits of the protocol than trying to build a comprehensive information platform. They then say Gemini "has no content" and leave in frustration. I myself hoped Gemini would replace my Web presence when I first made my capsule, but now I understand that Gemini fills its own place.
Would things have been different for Gemini had the pandemic never happened? Maybe. I certainly think there would not have been such a movement for people to "leave behind" the Web and embrace Gemini. But a side-effect of that movement is that Gemini has probably had more exposure than it would have had otherwise. Thus more people have learned about it, and more people have contributed some amazing content and services to the protocol.
I often find myself reflecting on solderpunk's stated goals for Gemini, as enumerated on the protocol's flagship capsule. While everyone understands the first statement, that Gemini is heavier than Gopher, I think too many people fixate on the statement that Gemini is lighter than the Web. However, one of the most important points to me is stated directly after: Gemini will not replace either. solderpunk understood this from day one.
My capsule has been online since 2021-03-31, meaning that I've now been on Gemini for more than half of the protocol's lifetime. I can't claim to be one of the early pioneers, but I've definitely been on Gemini long enough for it to have had a significant impact on my life. I'm looking forward to the next four years.
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[Last updated: 2023-06-20]