💾 Archived View for tilde.town › ~slimelia › posts › geminemini.gmi captured on 2024-02-05 at 09:45:10. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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Was in bed last night jotting down some thoughts to put up on this gemlog (because I am determined to actually USE this and not let it stagnate) and it got me thinking about the nature of Gemini itself, how we're seeing it be used, and how it could look in the future.
What I find interesting about Gemini and how it differs from Gopher is how you don't really see it being used for hosting files. Gopher has plenty of primarily text-based gopherholes, especially phlogs, but it also has a wealth of file directories. Infinitely Remote springs to mind, boasting 16Gb of content. And it's not surprising that so many gopherholes host file directories - that's what Gopher was built for, after all.
I suppose that's how Gemini differs? It wasn't built for document distribution, it was built to do all the other little things people use Gopher (and, of course, the Web) for: blogging, writing down thoughts and feelings, papers and research: text-based communications.
But it also lends itself quite well to hosting files! I'd use it to host miscellaneous interesting bits and pieces were I running my own server and not politely occupying my own small corner of the shared tilde.town machine, but as it stands I don't want to take up storage and bandwidth!
Maybe we'll see Gemini develop more into a platform with capsules similar to file hosting gopherholes, or BBS systems with file hosting areas. Although maybe that'd lend itself to exploitation, like how Usenet is primarily used today. (Speaking of - it's so odd that Usenet has been hijacked and is used primarily for piracy these days. How'd that happen?)