looks like rendering adblockers extensions obsolete with manifest-v3 was not enough so now they try to implement DRM into the browser giving the ability to any website to refuse traffic to you if you don't run a complaint browser ( cough...firefox )
here is an article in hacker news since i'm sure they can explain this to you better than i.
and also some github docs
It's endgame for old WWW. Well, maybe Gemini will have its market glory moment, though commercialization is explicitly what its creators and users don't want.
What is Gemini in this context?
https://gemini.circumlunar.space/
This is neat, but this decidedly a niche product with very limited application. I'm an old hat and I can't see the inherent value proposition in this, why is this better than static pages with hyperlinks? That doesn't and frankly shouldn't require a whole new protocol and client. That's what HTTP and HTML were originally built for.
It is static pages with hyperlinks, only in a different protocol. It's supposed to be like upgraded Gopher with some good things from modernity and HTTP.
Static pages with hyperlinks have evolved into a certain horror we all know. One of the stated goals is that Gemini is not extensible by design. It's not intended to easily grow additional features, even server-side theming of pages.
Why new protocol and clients - because of control. It's a small protocol, clients are simple, they don't need all the sandboxing and interpreting and DOM that web browsers have.
Why couldn't this just be a webring of sites following a specific design philosophy?
This is a neat idea, but the requirement of installing a whole new piece of software just to decide if it's worth exploring is already a non-starter.
I mean, there's the FAQ for this question among others, and it's like asking why Linux and not some Windows 1337 Pr0 B00tl3g Edition.
That "whole new piece of software" takes many times less than loading a webpage FFS, how often do you visit new webpages? And some people also play games, is installing a game a non-starter?
Because HTTP and HTML are already stretched out to be broken resulting in the internet you know. Gemini protocol, on the other hand, starts from scratch with the idea to be limited by design on what it can possibly do, so as to remove the most common commercial enshittification cases as early as possible.
Sure you could make the argument that HTML has too much going on, but you don't have to use all of that. It is still at its core just as capable of rendering plaintext and hyperlinks as it was the day it was originally conceived.
Why couldn't this just be a webring of sites that are following a specific design philosophy. I don't understand the requirement of an entirely new language, protocol, and client. You're not executing the goal in any way than what is already possible, and you're cutting yourself off from being accessible by the vast majority of people by requiring them to install a whole new piece of software just to see if this idea is worth exploring.
The people who designed Gemini (and those who designed Gopher, and who did IRC, and...) have already gone to vast lengths explaining why it has to be redesigned from scratch, including new language and protocol. tl;dr: if you keep using current HTML, you have no way of preventing people from using eg.: or , or anything beyond such as ads and malware. No amount of "pinky fingy we promise" can allow you to assure to your clients that the sites you link to are safe, which kills the idea of a webring.
I'm all for the return of webrings, but if what you want to offer is something that is 1.- safe and 2.- as protected as possible from the evil incentives that drive corps, then at the current development stage it just can't be HTML.