Few weeks ago I accidentally stumbled upon Project Gemini—I think I was browsing some random links on Wiby.me—and it really surprised me. Not only was I not aware about other Internet protocols (yes, I am ashamed of myself (¬_¬"), but there is a whole culture of the #smallnet hidden in a plain sight. It was like discovering #Fediverse all over again! I quickly found a gemini-compatible browser—Lagrange—and my dive into a new, exciting thing began.

At first, finding things in #Geminispace was challenging. But it felt strangely liberating. The local community is mostly well-educated IT specialists and enthusiasts. One of them has jokingly called Gemini “a place where the old IT seniors come to die”. This comparison made me think of the Grey Wardens from Dragon Age games and their necessity to seek the Deep Roads when they feel like their time is coming to an end. I really liked that image: the IT seniors clad in shiny armour give their final words of wisdom and disappear into the uncharted depths. “They call them Greybeards”, the story tells, “the ever-watchful guardians of cyberspace and cyberfreedoms against the corrupted Big-tech spawns.” Only unlike the Deep Roads, Geminispace is quiet and safe, without a constant horde of trackers, adspawns and other abominations up your back. It has its many limitations, but through them it shall remain a place of sacred refuge from the Big Tech and the noise of modern internet. As long as there is at least one Greybeard to roam its depth. 𓀛

Gemini's obscurity and lack of utility means that there are no analytics, no metrics, no ways to go viral, to monetize people's attention, build a career or even a minimally-functional web platform. No sane business would build on top of Gemini, and that is exactly why it is capable of having the character that it does.
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“Gemini is Useless” by Alex at gemini://alex.flounder.online/gemlog/2021-01-08-useless.gmi

P. S.: The word “Greybeard” is used as a unisex term, just for the connotation with Grey Wardens, and to link the old meme that deep knowledge of IT systems gets you a beard (˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ). I fully acknowledge that many of the heroes have no beard. ᡣ𐭩ྀིྀི