[ThrowAway1922A]

I think Gemini could have been fun for vintage and low powered systems, but then they slapped a mandatory TLS requirement on top of it. That's the entire reason I have no interest in Gemini.

It doesn't provide anything that HTTP or Gopher can't. I don't see the point.

[GuB-42]

I actually consider TLS an anti-feature in the case of Gemini.

What I mean is: what use do you have of TLS that is not about commercial applications and gatekeeping?

The obvious use of TLS is for e-commerce, so that you can pay securely. And for your passwords when you log into an account. But Gemini is not designed for e-commerce, it is designed for reading text documents. And it doesn't look like the philosophy is to restrict access to documents, so no need for accounts and passwords. What do you have to hide on Gemini?

Ok, imagine you have something to hide on Gemini. Here TLS offers only limited protection: it won't help you if the server is compromised, and it doesn't hide your connection to the server, only the data. For that, there are other privacy-oriented protocols that are much better suited for that.

So, TLS is a great protocol for the commercial web, and a rather weak one for privacy. Why do you think Google pushes so hard for https?

And for the anti-tampering part that is worthwhile, I think it would be better done at the document level, for example with PGP-style signature blocks.

[kevin_thibedeau]

TLS runs fine on 100-ish MHz systems. That is less powerful than most modern embedded devices and covers vintage deep into the 90s.

[sph]

TLS was unnecessary, I agree, but if it was plain text it would not have been more interesting to me, a computer nerd, than the current iteration.

I might have written a client, and just forgot about it because a plain text internet is really not very interesting for any demographic.