[_Algernon_]

The internet and web existed for a long time before everything became infested with advertisement: Hobbyist bulletin boards, Wikipedia, the blogosphere, etc. These had enough content that a single person couldn't consume it all in a lifetime.

[rglullis]

That internet was also only interesting and valuable to a fraction of the people who use it today.

And if you don't care about that and you are thinking from what you might get out of it: an internet where 99% of the content is crap but universal will end up with more valuable content than a neutered internet that can prevent the emergence of crap, but is tailored to appeal only to 1% of the people.

IOW, no one cares about reading all of Wikipedia, and Wikipedia would never reach the size it has if it was something only for a handful of individuals obsessed about their particular hobbies.

[selfhoster11]

Good. Not everyone has to be invited.

If the global Internet is a train in the 70s, Gemini is meant to be the non-smoking car at the very tail end. Those who cannot tolerate smoking (malicious practices surrounding user attention and agency), then they are free to make their way there and sit with other non-smokers. You won't have as good a conversation as in the smoking cars, but if the smoke really, truly bothers you, it's a space where different cultural rules apply by design.

[rglullis]

You may think that way, but to me a more apt analogy is that global Internet are the regular trains of today and Gemini wants to be a bizarre version of the quiet wagons where people can only talk if they don't use the letter "e".

[uamgeoalsk]

A movie theater where 99% of the movies are crap but universal is less interesting to me than a well curated cinematheque.

What I'm wondering is why do you feel the need to dismiss people's niche interests like this? You've even been rude about it in other answers, calling it "masturbatory".

Not everything has to be for everyone. Not everything has to be for you.