[snvzz]

Gemini might go away, but Gopher is forever.

[anthk]

Actually both communities overlap. Also, Gopher sucks in any device smaller a DEC terminal. Gemini gives you methods to display your media on nearly any size of screen.

[snvzz]

>both communities overlap.

The overlap is much smaller than gemini proponents would have you think.

E.g. I wouldn't touch gemini with a 15ft pole.

>Gemini gives you methods to display your media on nearly any size of screen.

But it still requires SSL and it still doesn't tell you the size of the resource you're fetching.

The Gemini protocol can't be fixed, as by design it cannot be modified.

Overall, Gemini just smells like an expression of the authors' narcissism.

[anthk]

Narcissism, no. Gopher sucks when you can't display it properly in the 99% of the phones out there. Gemini it's like gopher on features plus TLS and not bound to a DEC terminal. And I say this by daily using OpenBSD in a netbook with xterm/tmux as the main interface.

On TLS, you can get an RPI far cheaper than a second hand 486 machine back in the day in 2001. Starting from a Pentium MMX (better a Pentium II) you can TLS just fine. Heck, even an Amiga with a 68030 can do TLS with a bit of ptience (few seconds on handshake/deal).

And any competent hoster would provide both services for its site, as lots of Gemini users do, not leaving anyone behind.

For instance, gopher://midnight.pub and gemini://midnight.pub

[eddieroger]

I don't know, Gopher being removed from Firefox and Chrome over the last few years kinda disagrees with that sentiment.

[distcs]

You can still connect to Gopher server using "proper" Gopher clients, so the parent commenter is still right that Gopher is not going away. But then Gemini too is not going away. These niche protocols will always have their niche communities using their niche clients so they are probably going to survive even if they remain obscure.

[kristopolous]

FTP was even removed 2 years ago.

Really, look that up.

[lolinder]

The fact that we'd have to look it up is why it was removed. I haven't used FTP in at least a decade—scp does the trick for my server management needs, HTTP is sufficient for download-only use cases, and Dropbox-style applications have supplanted FTP for shared files. FTP is more general than any of these three replacements, but it isn't ideal for any one of the use cases.

[Minor49er]

I only use X, YouTube, Insta, and TikTok. Browsers should just refuse to connect to any other site besides those

[mattl]

Web browsers should stick to web browsing and other tools should handle other protocols at this point in time.

[lolinder]

I take it you have a use case for FTP still that's not yet been supplanted by other, more specialized tools? Please share, rather than snarking.

[Minor49er]

To name a few, I interact with a number of sites on shared hosting that have been using FTP for years. I also work with a data server that primarily interfaces with its data store through FTP. It also used to be easier to just host an FTP server and manage its access independent of a website, but still link to it in a browser where people who are not technically inclined could browse and interact with files without needing a separate dedicated client. Even for me, it would be simpler to just see an FTP file listing in a browser sometimes

The point is that browsers used to be able to browse the Internet, but major players such as Google have been working hard to limit all of these things to just HTTPS. Excusing things away by saying "well I don't use it, so it's useless" has only helped to narrow this path

[NikkiA]

Bah, gopher is just a lousy hytelnet wannabe.