[dvt]

> The modern web sucks

I think that this premise is wrong. The modern web does not suck. FB is usable by my grandma (at 89 she posts semi-regularly!), but there's no way she could understand how to set up an IRC client, how to telnet into servers, or how to write markdown.

Of course, there's a lot of bad and a lot of baggage that comes with companies like Facebook and Google, but it's important to keep some perspective: there's also a lot of good. Gemini would literally make the web unusable for my grandma, and probably my mom, too.

[tcmart14]

If your grandma can install a web browser, she could install lagrange. If she knows how to navigate to 'facebook.com,' she can navigate to a gemini URL. If gemini got enough user share, lagrange or something similar would come installed on a computer by default. Gemini is not all that hard to use. From the user perspective, it is just like using Chrome, but the websites are more basic.

[cr__]

And Facebook tracks your grandma's internet activities and manipulates her emotional state for profit.

[Permit]

> manipulates her emotional state for profit.

Can you share more on this? I've heard they conducted large-scale studies of emotional state[1], but I never heard about a link to profit before.

[1] https://www.pnas.org/content/111/24/8788

[viraptor]

It's not that they have a plan to abuse people for money. It's just that being opposite of boring gives them profit. Outrage brings engagement. Engagement brings time on the platform and ad clicks.

[throwawayboise]

They manipulate for engagement, more time on site, to show more ads.

[Permit]

If that is the extent of this line of reasoning then I guess I am in agreement with dvt. That doesn't seem "bad" to me in the least. I thought cr__ was sharing new information regarding the often criticized study I linked above.

[throwawayboise]

Let's be honest, 99% of what your grandma has to tell you could be put in an email with no intermediating parties. The web is totally unnecessary for that.

[yongjik]

"No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."

[grumbel]

> The modern web does not suck. FB is usable by my grandma

I'd say the fact that your grandma has to use FB instead of publish on the Web itself is exactly why it sucks. What most people are using isn't really the Web, but apps that happen to (ab)use the Web. Many of which don't even use the Web for the app, but just redirect you to a mobile app instead.

Now I don't think Gemini is actually fixing any of this, but I do feel that the Web today is fundamentally broken and the lack of self-publishing is disheartening, though understandable given that the Web makes it far from easy.

[croes]

Where is the contradiction?

A lot of usable things suck.