A fair point but my point is that http is a very simple easy to use specification, and for content html can be a very simple easy to use document format, gemini is fine, I think it is great that people are having fun on the internet, you will however have a hard time convincing me that http/html is too complicated. Note that html can be too complicated, but it does not have to be, not everything needs to be some sort of monstrous framework heavy single page javascript encumbered anomaly.

> Note that html can be too complicated, but it does not have to be, not everything needs to be some sort of monstrous framework heavy single page javascript encumbered anomaly.

The philosophy of Gemini seems to be that it's not enough that people can create Gemini's austere's experience with the web, but that everyone must be forced to conform. I guess "punk" has lost all of it's meaning.

> but that everyone must be forced to conform

One thing I like about smolweb stuff, including Gemini, is that they really aren’t being gatekeepers. Sure, they have strong opinions (and they encode them in protocols) but it comes off like a DM trying to make a good campaign.

You're free to express yourself within the technological limitations. Sometimes that's more freeing than having an overload of functionality. It also makes it more of an open platform because anybody can re-implement it if they want. That's plenty "punk" to me.

Alternatively, use the flying spaghetti codebase monster duopoly, also known as Chromium and Firefox.

Or you can, like, ensure that the HTML content you write is usable in lynx or w3m. I do.

>You're free to express yourself within the technological limitations. Sometimes that's more freeing than having an overload of functionality. It also makes it more of an open platform because anybody can re-implement it if they want. That's plenty "punk" to me.

Being satisfied with technological limitations and coloring in the lines has never been "punk."

Punk is pushing a system to its bleeding edge, breaking it, undermining it, using it in ways it was never intended for and not giving a damn about keeping things tidy. The web in all its hypercomplex madness and ugliness is far more punk than Gemini is even capable of being. Gemini doesn't even allow site authors control over the design or layout of their content - that's entirely implemented by the browser.

Punk is rebellion against authority and systems of control, while Gemini is rebellion against freedom and the imposition of control for the sake of ascetic minimalism. Punk is anarchy, while Gemini is orthodoxy. It gets points for being anticapitalist, though.

> Gemini doesn't even allow site authors control over the design or layout of their content

Of course not. End users should have control of their experience. Why should someone else get to control what my software does on my machine? Why should some designer somewhere be the authority? I'm going to pick the fonts and colors and styles I want.

Seems like a pretty punk-rebellious attitude to me.

>Why should someone else get to control what my software does on my machine?

For the same reason someone else gets to control the layout of a magazine you buy. The browser is yours, but the page you're accessing is not. It is the creative expression of someone else, why should they not have the right to express themselves freely? Why are you insisting on absolute creative freedom and editorial control over other people's property?

I mean, ignore javascript entirely. Why should someone publishing to Gemini not be able to set the background and font on their site? Gemini doesn't even allow even the tiny bit of individualism offered by the old web.

>Seems like a pretty punk-rebellious attitude to me.

You're view is literally rebelling against other people's freedom because what they do might not suit your tastes, and you don't feel others should have the right to violate your sense of aesthetics. Wanting to control everything isn't punk, it's textbook authoritarianism.

But I doubt we're going to see eye to eye on this.

> But I doubt we're going to see eye to eye on this.

It does seem unlikely - our perspectives are so different! - but it's an interesting conversation. Thank you for engaging.

You seem to be conflating the concepts of property ownership and copyright. We're not disagreeing about the idea of controlling other people's property, but about whose property it is.

The magazine example is a good one: the publisher owns the masters, and retains the copyright, but the copy of the magazine - the physical object I bought - is no longer the publisher's property, but mine, to do with as I please. If I want to mark it up, cut it up, or dust off my decades-obsolete paste-up skills and entirely redo its layout, that's my right as the owner of that copy of the magazine.

The same is true on the web. The original page, on the server you own, certainly is your property: but when I visit your site, and my browser downloads a copy of the page, that new copy, stored and processed on my computer, belongs to me. You retain the copyright, but you do not own the copy, and I am free to munge its bits in any fashion that suits me, because I own it.

> Why should someone publishing to Gemini not be able to set the background and font on their site?

It would be contrary to the purpose of the medium. It's like complaining that a haiku magazine won't publish your sonnet, or a podcast site won't host your videos; that might well be a fine thing to do, but this is not the place for it.

> Gemini doesn't even allow even the tiny bit of individualism offered by the old web.

Yeah, it's maybe less like the old web and more like "what if the old plain-text Internet, and the BBS scene before it, had developed into a hypertext medium?"

Really, now? Since when is anyone being "forced to conform"? It's an alternative protocol stack that people can use if they want. I don't see anyone saying "you have to use Gemini, or else" - but I do see people attacking it for being its own thing, rather than part of the web.

yes, the argument goes that because html can be too complicated gemini was designed to actively prevent and limit these complications. Of course html can be used in a simple gemini- or gopherlike way as well. But some purists want nothing to do with the complexities, distractions from and corruption of pure textual information.