Gemini Protocol is Not a Waste of Time of Effort
Gemini Protocol is mostly or primarily adopted by geeks. They're typically first (early adopters) because of technical barriers associated with setup. Gemini Protocol is still a 'niche', so not many VPS providers or hosting companies have a "Gemini plan" (unless it's about slop something, not Gemini Protocol - they'd likely engage in port-blocking too).
Nevertheless, this means that having presence in Geminispace gives access to many who are interested in technology and may already be opinionated about "modern" technology (hence the interest in Gemini Protocol).
This past week we've served 154,488 Gemini requests in Tux Machines and almost twice as many in Techrights. In relative terms, activity in WWW is a lot higher than in Gemini Protocol, but then again consider how many Web sites there are compared to capsules or how many Web users (billions) there are compared to Geminauts (Gemini astronauts, now it's also the name of a Gemini client).
Aiming for "mainstream" (unlike "smoll web" or "sm0l web") may seem like common sense, but a lot of what's "mainstream" is profoundly toxic. That's also why we choose IRC, not social control media. IRC probably has less than a million users worldwide (social control media has over a billion 'addicts'), but you cannot speak to even a million people anyhow.
We see more and more GNU/Linux- or BSD-focused bloggers turning to Gemini. They have good reasons to! █