#067
Yesterday I was thinking about my presence on ATProto and how I don't feel safe in that space at all. It's been mostly Bluesky and the small character limit is the bane of my existence. So I was digging into other stuff in that space outside of Bluesky. While I didn't found anything that caught my eye, I want to share my findings.
HUGE DISCLAIMER: I'm highly hesitant about every platform made by/affiliated with Bluesky . I'm not recommending any of these sites and I hope anyone who checks out there links does their due research on privacy and portability before signing up on any of these sites.
- Leaflet.pub - honestly the only service I can see myself using. It's an open source blogging platform thing! Found the repo as well. It has customization options and free custom domains (what a grab). It also federates to Bluesky which is probably a really nice feature but I'm terrified of the Bluesky crowd so the idea of visibility over them scares the shit outta me.
- Tangled - smooth segue to this one if I do say so myself. Tangled is a GitHub alternative. Leaflet's code is hosted there.
- Pckt - another blogging platform. I couldn't find who made this and I find that real sus. In the TOS it says that while the site allows adult content, it's hidden by default and changing the setting requires "age confirmation"??? squints Is that an euphemism for age verification. I don't even wanna find out for myself.
- Offprint.app - this and the other two blogging platforms seem to be the big three for this thing called standard.sites, a standard Bluesky Inc. is pushing for publishing on ATProto.
- surf.social - this one was made by the same guys from Flipboard.social. Flipboard is... I don't know of an equivalent actually. They sell themselves as a "social magaazine" (whatever) that means. They have a strong presence on the Fediverse and surf.social seems to be their expansion to ATProto where they are focusing exclusively on increasingly the discoverability of feeds. The site is on open beta. NGL I'm kind of interested in this but I have no experience with Bluesky feeds. It better have a way to add them to my reader someday.
I think my general issue with Bluesky and ATProto is that services are so commercial. The layouts are polished, aimed at "publishers" and "content creators". While doing his research I felt like I had summoned y inner, hiding half my face with a fan while staring at these places with thinly veiled disdain. As I say at the beginning, I allowed my curiosity to take me places to find a safer way to use the PDS I already have although it seems I haven't found it yet.