One weird trick to read more blogs

The first blog post that I wrote on @leaflet.pub was about the importance of blogging, and especially why I'm so keen on @standard.site (and the Atmosphere in general):

I've had a great time both writing and reading within this ecosystem over the past few months. I even had someone recognize me from my blog('s awful color scheme) in real life. It reminds me of the heyday of Google Reader, back when I used an RSS feed extension to find new sites to follow.

I wanted to give back to the community, so now: you can do that for standard.site too.

this is substandard

Substandard is a Chrome extension to help you subscribe to more standard.site publications. You can install it from the Chrome Web Store, or do a developer mode install from @permadeath.com/substandard on Tangled.

You can also read more at substandard.blog:

Substandard itself hosts a standard.site publication, so you can install it and then subscribe to get updates!

The Substandard extension will tell you if the site you're visiting is registered as a @standard.site publication:

It'll also help you log in with your Atmosphere account to subscribe - or tell you where to create one, if you aren't signed up already:

The extension also helps you open the current pub (or article) in your preferred @standard.site reader for a better reading experience or more features:

And it'll display some diagnostic info if there are any issues with @standard.site validation*¹:

The fine print

This extension was built with heavy AI assistance (though all PR merges are gated on a human). It is offered with absolutely no warranty, it might brick your computer, whatever. You are (hopefully?) an adult, figure it out.

The extension only uses the substandard.blog domain for SSO login (and for verification with the Chrome Web Store). There's no backend at all, because all logins and standard.site data modifications take place against your Atmosphere account's configured PDS.

You can read more on the privacy policy.

The future

I'll continue to update the substandard browser extension, because I'll be using it myself every day.

However, Substandard is based on some ideas I've previously written about in my blog post about adversarial internecting:

@schlage.town coincidentally also had a recent post about this, including a lot of detail about what Substack offers that makes it so sticky:

I would love to get more people blogging on the Atmosphere. But if it gets them to get the fuck off of Substack in the process? That's even better.

Some planned future developments for Substandard include:

• Explainers for what the Atmosphere is, and why/how you should ditch Substack for it
• Starter kits for new readers: what Atmosphere blogging apps to sign up for, and what standard.site pubs to check out
• Guides for new publishers: setup and migrations, recommended tools, and static site guides
• A hosted RSS bridge service to quickly retrofit non-Atmospheric blogs onto standard.site
• Tools to analyze and vibe-check the standard.site ecosystem

If you're interested in any of that, shoot me a message at @permadeath.com and let's talk blogs.