------------------------------------------------------------------- +title: Part of the smolnet +date: Fri, 16 Feb 2024 05:49:28 +0100 +author: -fab- ------------------------------------------------------------------- __________ __ ________ _____ .___ __ \______ \_____ ________/ |_ \_____ \_/ ____\ | |/ |_ | ___/\__ \\_ __ \ __\ / | \ __\ | \ __\ | | / __ \| | \/| | / | \ | | || | |____| (____ /__| |__| \_______ /__| |___||__| \/ \/ In todays digital world the world wide web has become a conglomerate or an oligopoly of a few big players which try to squeeze every bit of information out of the user. We are bombarded with advertisements and every step you take is tracked and stored in a big database. Content is only produced to contain ads and generate clicks - a perfect job for AI. And I predict most "content" will be produced by AI to this end in future. This is what Cory Doctorow coined as "Enshittification" and it gets worse and worse. But I don't want to go that route. In 2020 when I discovered the Gemini protocol I already knew a little about tildes and pubnixes, but all I knew was that they were public Unix or BSD servers, where the users could try out, learn and share about the system. I never really thought about them as small communities or ecosystems. I also knew about gopher as an antique and old protocol that barely outlived the '90s. My web usage until then was mainly to get technical information or documentation. For other information search results were getting nearly unusable. Sponsored links all over the place but nothing really interesting without evil corporate incentives. So I dug deeper into these small communities known as "smolnet". I was intrigued by the Gemini protocol and it's properties. The decentralized, simple, private and plain text based nature of it were really refreshing. And the community and ecosystem around it is made mostly of people who are interested in the same things as I am. And although I'm not a people person and I'm not good at keeping long lasting relationships on a day to day basis I wanted to be a part of the smolnet. I want to be part of an alternative and open internet ecosystem concerned with privacy, diversity, smol technology, tinkering and new smol solutions. Most pubnixes/tildes demand some constant participation in the community but I often take long breaks from computing and working on my projects. This is the reason I built my own smolnet server in 2021 - with Gemini being the first service I set up. Then a HTTP proxy followed and just a few weeks ago I added a finger and gopher server to my installation. It's strange to set up such old protocols in '24 but I know there are still a lot of enthusiasts and geeks using gopher and all those other simple tools. In fact I've just begun to discover the gopher space because I concentrated on Gemini before and I quickly realized that there is a lot of (ok - often very old) stuff in it. I'm not sure if it's only because I just begun to go down that rabbit hole but it seems Gemini/gopher are becoming attractive to more and more people. It seems folks really get sick from that WWW dustbin. It's really fun to discover new, exciting and interesting gopher holes and Gemini capsules. There is a lot to learn. No distracting ads or cookie banners with their dark patterns. Just real content from real people for real people. And I like writing my own gemlog or gopher phlog posts - although I'm not a good writer and I'm not a native English speaker. But I'll write anyway. And I recommend anybody to do the same about whatever topic they like. You don't need to be a professional writer to get some words out. It's also nice to get some feedback from time to time. Any comment, advice, (constructive) criticism or other input is very appreciated. So if you want to drop me some words write me an email or follow me on mastodon and contact me there. I would be happy to hear from you. So I think I'm part of the smolnet community now - although I might take some breaks from time to time, but that's also a feature. One can also call the smolnet "the slow web". All in all - Have fun! -fab-