The geminauts (Was: Gempub 1.0.0 ; A new eBook format based on Gemini Protocol's Gemtext

[Göktuğ Kayaalp]

On 2021-04-26 08:31 +02, 'Stephane Bortzmeyer' <stephane@sources.org> wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 25, 2021 at 04:35:29PM -0700,
>  raph@raphm.com <raph@raphm.com> wrote 
>  a message of 57 lines which said:
>> Also, I'm new to this list and to Gemini (hi, everyone!), but I'm
>> old enough to remember when we called it "the net" and not "the
>> web". Gemini does a great job of bringing back the
>> impossible-to-describe feel of the early 1990s internet, right after
>> BBSs and right before Canter and Siegel did their thing and filled
>> up my NNTP drive.  :)
> I don't know if a researcher already did a survey of geminauts, and of
> their age. Are they old people nostalgic of the beginning or young
> people eager to revolutionize "Dad's Web"? I was also a Usenet admin
> at the time of C&S.

27yo here.  We’re the generation that had it the worst, literally went
to school and back uphill both ways :P  I was a teenager as free software
desktop went from a hackers’ joke to a reality, almost.  Saw computing
fly towards a nirvana of sorts, then get T-boned by FAANG and slowly
become the thing it is today.  We went sideways and backwards.

What brings me to gemini is thus not really nostalgia but a desire to
track back to ~2010 and move in the better direction, reclaim that
ruined climax, if you will.  Same with Fediverse, with static websites.

That’s also maybe why I wasn’t ever a fan of Gopher.  I don’t think of
Gemini as a retro thing (even tho I like the vibe) or a minimalist,
simplistic thing (even tho I like the perks).  This whole thing feels
like a net step forward to me.


           -gk.