Think of it as cars and bicycles: why do people use bikes if cars already exist?
- because it's healthier
- because given a proper infrastructure it's more pleasant (and probably safer)
Of course one can ride one's bike on most car oriented infrastructure, but it's nice to know you're not going to be hit by a truck if you make a turn somewhere.
You can write your own server or client in a couple days, from scratch, without using libraries or worrying about corner cases.
You're not exposed to the larger web, accidentally or otherwise: no web crawlers, links from modern web sites (causing annoyed users who think your site is broken), or invasions by thousands upon thousands of 4chan trolls or whatever.
So, to go back to the metaphor: a bicycle is not a car, and for _most_ use cases it's objectively worse. It doesn't go nearly as fast, it exposes you to the elements, it can't carry very much. But it's easy to tune and maintain yourself with just a few simple tools. It does require effort on your part, but the exercise can be enjoyable. You don't need to worry about refueling, accidents aren't so dangerous, you can go on winding little trails and skip the freeways. Traffic isn't an issue. You end up paying more attention to your surroundings and noticing details more on a bike ride than you would in a car.
One option is very deliberately simple and low-tech, and despite that it ends up being (for some people) a more pleasant and beneficial experience.
text/gemini is a markup format by itself, and I do not think that it is any more readable/editable compared to say markdown.
> You can write your own server or client in a couple days, from scratch, without using libraries or worrying about corner cases.
Good luck implementing TLS from scratch. If we ignore TLS this argument still does not make a lot of sense, I made a toy http server years back within a few hours.
> links from modern web sites (causing annoyed users who think your site is broken)
This line of argument seems elitistic to me, as in "we do not want the common non-technical folk to start using it".
> or invasions by thousands upon thousands of 4chan trolls or whatever
Yet one of the most popular sites on gemini is a BBS by kiwifarms (which includes 4channers).
The metaphor (thanks for explaining it by the way) seems to make the incorrect assumption that gemini is a simpler protocol compared to a subset of http that gemini could have used instead.