A neophyte's thoughts on TLS

Edit:

gemini://gemini.conman.org/boston/2022/02/16.1

gemini://warmedal.se/~bjorn/posts/2022-02-17-i-don-t-really-want-to-write-this-post.gmi

No need to ... discuss whether gemini should have TLS or not, to be honest. It does, and that's the end of it.

Fair enough! Moving on.

My original post is below.

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Regardless of its merits, TLS is complex. Complexity means spending more time managing complexity instead of reading and writing.

What I want out of Gemini is a niche reading and writing platform with a community around it. Basically, I want a less-clunky Gopher. That seems to be what we have today. I want it to be niche because I want it to stay small. If it gets big, the community vibe is likely to wither, and so too will my interest.

This means that my idealized Gemini is an exceptionally small, low-value target for attack or manipulation. There's risk, sure. But the reward of simplicity likely outweighs that risk on my balance sheet.

For me, then, TLS provides net negative value. That's according to /my/ hopes for Gemini. And who am I? I'm a nobody, a tourist, a johnny-come-lately. If I don't have Gemini, I'll go back to blogging, or journaling, or trying Gopher again, or whatever. And that'll be fine.

I assume that many people have grander visions for Gemini and have invested a lot more of themselves in pursuit. It makes sense that they'd have very different thoughts on the value of TLS. So, please consider this post to be a humble musing rather than a proposed answer to any open question.

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