________ ________ ________
2021-03-19 / \/ \/ / \
/ __/ /_ _/
I started writing about Gemini and the / _/ / /
recent wave of interest from a circle of \_______/_\___/____/\___/____/_
tech/Linux YouTubers and the more I wrote / \/ \/ / \
the more I felt like I was getting déjà vu. / _/ /_ _/
Had I written about all this before? /- / _/ /
\________/\________/\___/____/
Well yes, it turns out I had! The same
crowd "discovered" Gopher a couple years ago and "left the web forever".
For the most part, my original comments[1] still stand but I wanted to
highlight one bit in paricular;
In that same vein, so frequently these fair weather visitors
bring nothing to Gopher for Gopher, often patting themselves on
the back for mirroring their web presence or similar. This is, in
my opinion, not what Gopher needs and is certainly not a good way
to generate long-term interest. You might find one or two Gopher
users who appreciate being able to access your content without
leaving their comfort zone but that's preaching to the choir. Of
those already accessing your content via the Web, a handful might
check the Gopher space out for the novelty but not many are
likely to become Gopher converts. It helps very little to "bring
gopher back".
This really nails why I get so snotty about this gang's new interest in
Gemini. They're using Gemini, ok good, but they're not contributing anything
to growing Gemini as its own space. Gemini as nothing but a plain-text mirror
of Web content will be forgotten, it'll be nothing more than an experiment or
a footnote to the Web. It serves no purpose.
And that's all I see so far from these tech YouTubers, the same mirrored
Web content they posted for a few months on Gopher until they forgot about it.
They'll forget about Gemini too, given a few months, I'm sure.
A small afterthought that came to me once I re-read this after publishing
is that, as ugly or unpleasant as you may find it, objectively the Crunk
Gemini Textboard[2] has contributed more original, for-Gemini content than all
these TechTubers have so far. Not an endorsement, just an observation.
Unlikely that kind of content will put Gemini on the map though haha.
[1] gopher://baud.baby/0/phlog/fs20190530.txt
[2] gemini://matrix.kiwifarms.net
EOF