Inline images is a client implementation/styling detail. Some clients have it, but most don’t as most users don’t want it. I believe Lagrange (the most “visual” browser) has this feature.

No inline images is not a restriction of the protocol. It's a restriction of the text/gemini MIME content type, and of the browser implementations. A server can still respond with text/html content over the GEMINI protocol, with embedded <image/> data. The GEMINI protocol specification does not restrict what RFC2045 types can be used.

* https://geminiprotocol.net/docs/protocol-specification.gmi

* https://iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml

I do think it's a shame that Gemini doesn't have images and richer text, but maybe it would be even less popular/successful if it had those. Gemini won't be the last of these simple protocols so it's a useful learning opportunity.

My project at the moment is kind of related to these "simple web" ideas. Instead of giving up on HTML altogether I'm making a simple web browser, to see if there's a way to render even relatively complex existing pages, like Wikipedia or news sites, without needing to implement much or any CSS. A bit like "reader mode". (link if you are interested: https://codeberg.org/kaimac/weaver)

You'd have to prove these things are possible in the face of the ingenuity of the entire adtech industry. The limitations you point out, on the other hand, have easy solutions:

* auth: Look at https://github.com/kr1sp1n/awesome-gemini#services Tons of services support some form of auth.

Edit: https://martinrue.com/station is another service I use that's missing in the above list.

* images: click to load

Janky but doable. Janky is the price you have to pay to avoid adtech.

Authenticated sessions are supported using client certificates.

No inline images is a significant restriction indeed but it also gives you a high degree of confidence that most Gemini pages will be very lightweight. I don't find it that limiting. It all goes back to the point that Gemini is intended to supplement the web and not replace it - if you want image heavy content you can get it elsewhere. Personally I find the lack of inline formatting and links more frustrating.

Nothing prevents a gemini browser from showing inline images (though it might be officially discouraged?). They are just links.

But actually loading images separately can work well. If you are reading for the text content you can save the time and bandwidth to load of all the images, or maybe you want to look at one image in detail, you can load just that one, and zoom or frame that independently of the surrounding text.

How about:

- no scripts of any kind

- no cookies

- no forms

- all resources (e.g., styles, images) needed for display inlined

- a spacious minimum cap on data URI length

- elaborate the <a> tag a bit to allow a series of content addresses (hashes, IPFS, magnet URIs, etc.) for references

Basically, a "dead" subset of HTML suitable for distributing documents.