Project Gemini

Maybe this is just me showing my age, but I don't understand why reinvent everything when you could just go back to something like HTML 2.0 or even 3.2 with some minor changes. I probably hate what happened with the "modern web" as much as the Gemini developers, but going full NIH is unlikely to be a good solution when there's an existing "unmodern web" to develop for, and as a bonus, can be experienced even with a modern browser.

Never underestimate interoperability.

Interesting outro. Interoperability is presumably one very big reason for this protocol.

As for why, all I can say is, download Lagrange, go to gemini://bleyble.com/cgi-bin/random, and see for yourself. It's one thing hearing about it and a completely different experience browsing the geminispace.

The different experience is largely thanks to different content, not different protocol. The protocol just serves a gatekeeping role to keep the community small enough.

That's true to some extent, but it's also true that the side-effect of the protocol is that it results in a very different community.

It's a bit like saying that the camping experience has nothing to do with not having access to electricity. Well, true but also not true.