The rationale is fair enough, to some extent: it implements...

The rationale is fair enough, to some extent: it implements something you could already do a bunch of other ways (JS events, proxy through a tracking redirect, ...), so it's not giving anyone novel capabilities. But in return, it avoids (in theory) tracking enthusiasts playing stupid sneaky games with hypermedia, and encodes the intent of the site author semantically into the page, where the browser can understand it (and then ignore it, or point it out to you, or ...).

TIL I guess.

Like 6 October at 5:34 | Open on hachyderm.io

10 comments

mos_8502 :verified:

@danderson For contrast, Gemini has a protocol level limitation of one click equaling exactly one network transaction.

6 October at 5:36 | Open on studio8502.ca

Dave Anderson

@mos_8502 yeah. Unfortunately I find gemini unusable, because IMO it's gone way too far in the opposite direction and removed so much that it's a hostile experience. I find it an interesting art project to discover how much you can take away before a system becomes _completely_ useless, but it's not something I can use.

But that's just me! Some folks enjoy it, and I'm happy they found a calm port in the storm. Sadly, I must keep sailing.

6 October at 5:42 | Open on hachyderm.io

mos_8502 :verified:

@danderson Well, it’s aimed at a different task than the web. Gemini is like a hybrid of Gopher and the Web before it was viable to monetize anything.

6 October at 5:45 | Open on studio8502.ca

Dave Anderson

@mos_8502 Yeah I get what it's aiming for, and it succeeds at that. I just want something less extreme. Tables, inline images, math markup, more semantic markup than gemtext has, that sort of thing. Hell, even some tastefully rethought way to execute code! Code execution isn't the problem, consent is.

But that wouldn't be gemini, it's another more different thing somewhere between gemini and www. And I get why gemini didn't do that, and why people like what it did. Just, not for me.

6 October at 5:50 | Open on hachyderm.io

Dave Anderson

@mos_8502 Then again I'm also the weirdo that watched the "web that never was" talk, and immediately wanted Hyperlisp.

6 October at 5:45 | Open on hachyderm.io

mos_8502 :verified:

@danderson When I imagine a “web” equivalent that Neo-retro systems can use on equal footing with modern desktops, Gemini is the closest real thing I’ve seen so far.

6 October at 5:47 | Open on studio8502.ca

Dave Anderson

@mos_8502 Yup, for sure. As I say, I get what gemini's shooting for, and I even like some of its choices. I just think that it went too far for me, and then did the whole "renouncing of possibilities" thing by striving to make extension impossible. Again, I get why, but it means it's a dead end to me.