You've actually convinced me that this was at least a reasonable idea but I don't think a gopherhole shop rating system would be in theme with the closely knit community dynamic we have.

The protocol was going to have a feature-rich, shopping-friendly set of extensions, but when this was proposed in 1993, there was a community backlash against commercialising the gopher; read Albert Rosetti's booklet about what happened. This is roughly how the gopher protocol became both liberated and hyperstable in the early 90s.

Imagine if a gopher wanted to sell or otherwise pass on some old computer hardware. It makes sense to share that on their gopherhole: And since payment handling is ~ always legally middle-manned by a payment handler who will handle the payment anyway, the protocol wouldn't need to be extended to be a payment processer.

On the other hand, I would be against paving paradise to put up a parking lot.

The indomitable artist @prahou@bsd.network has created forbidden alchemy gopher - links2 alchemy https://bsd.network/@prahou/110578548848852719