
AMPstinction - valeg
https://adactio.com/journal/13964
======
amiga-workbench
There is a growing confusion with web developers about what a webpage actually
is, the conflation with web applications is getting rather harmful.

If you are building a webpage (a web document) its probably the goal of the
user to go there and read some information and move on, they aren't there for
an "experience" and if your javascript weighs more than the useful amount of
text on that page you are probably doing something very wrong.

Oh well, you reap what you sow, I hope you're happy with your new proprietary
web.

~~~
endorphone
"I hope you're happy with your new proprietary web."

Absolutely, and it is close to impossible to discuss rationally without the
conversation being dominated by rhetoric.

[https://dennisforbes.ca/index.php/2017/09/05/embrace-amp-
or-...](https://dennisforbes.ca/index.php/2017/09/05/embrace-amp-or-amp-wins/)

The point of that piece is that AMP _is_ filling a role -- a minimal web for
document publishing -- and denying it, as always happens in AMP discussions,
simply makes an easy road for AMP's domination.

~~~
majewsky
> AMP is filling a role -- a minimal web for document publishing

I always thought HTML 1.0 filled that role.

~~~
mcbits
HTML has had the potential to fill that role since day one, but while today
we're talking about sites sitting blank for 5 seconds because they're
downloading megabytes of garbage, back then we had pages sitting blank for 60
seconds because they were downloading 101KB+ of totally insane HTML and
animated GIFs of dancing babies and nuclear explosions.

------
AlexandrB
"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

Google is the new Microsoft. Embrace, extend, and extinguish is alive and
well, it just found a new home[1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish)

~~~
giancarlostoro
I share this view.

"Sorry this website only works in Chrome"

"Google Hangouts / Google Talk will no longer support XMPP / Jabber"

"Try our not-so-open source available mobile OS" We'll follow you across the
web and in real life because our Open Source platforms are published as
proprietary.

"Try our proprietary browser for which we release the code for but heavily
modify before it gets to you"

At least Microsoft has open source projects that you get what they share
published, no crazy surprises, telemetry aside for .NET tooling (which imho is
seriously minuscule compared to what it could be).

~~~
Promarged
I have to agree, Google gives new meaning to "open source". Open source as "we
share some source but the actual meat is in closed proprietary codebase that
you cannot inspect". I still remember the AOSP maintainer (Google employee)
leaving because he couldn't do his work properly because of Google's politics
w.r.t. Android.

Or was that the open source that RMS warned us about?

~~~
giancarlostoro
Free as in freedom and not free beer indeed. I mean I don't mind some
proprietary uses of Open Source (how else will you fund the project!) but
there should be limits to how you do this. I prefer extra paid features / paid
support. Google could of made Android a proper Linux distro and charged
manufacturers for OS package releases / updates or something of the sort,
something reasonable. I wish Android _was_ more Linux like where I can install
w/e I want without being forced anything specifically. Replace the UI
completely as I so desire as well.

------
justinph
For many publishers (I work for one), AMP pages aren't any faster than their
pages from a cold start. The advantage AMP has is that it doesn't load from a
cold start; most visitors to AMP pages come from search where google starts
pre-loading & pre-rendering the page with service workers. There is no real
way for a publisher to do that on their own. Discussed here in the context of
the difficulties of measuring AMP performance:
[https://www.ampproject.org/latest/blog/measuring-amp-
perform...](https://www.ampproject.org/latest/blog/measuring-amp-performance/)

I agree AMP is an abomination and despise google for introducing it. They've
abdicated their duty to nudge the advertising world forward.

------
niftich
AMP being marketed on "performance" was always a hook primarily to sway end-
users to associate AMP with performance, build mindshare, and cut down on opt-
outs, a strategy helped by the fact that every developer, publisher, and
decision-maker is also implicitly an end-user.

In truth, once you peel away layers of marketing, AMP's purpose becomes clear
[1] as an answer to Facebook's Instant Articles, which tries to chart a have-
your-cake-and-eat-it-too course for Google to build consensus around
lightweight payloads on the wild [2], open web, while morphing more and more
of their products [3][4] to serve as windows to others' content.

It is useful for them to position it as a publishing platform, in a sense,
because it furthers the ecosystem they're trying to encourage.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14529691](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14529691)
[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14465801](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14465801)
[3]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14529691](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14529691)
[4]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16367197](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16367197)

------
tannhaeuser
I hope publishers understand they're only in for their own extinction by
looking at Google/AMP, and are undermining their own efforts to outlaw link
preview of news articles on SERP and aggregation pages in EU ([1]). To those
that don't: good riddance. I don't care what you've to say when you're
displaying this kind of utter media incompetency and hostility towards an
entire generation's work on Web standards; same with "publications" on Fb
(hello EU state-owned broadcasters).

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17260148](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17260148)

~~~
zimbatm
It's the prisoner's dilemma. If they were all not participating it would be
fine. But because some are, and Google is ranking them higher-up, all of them
now have to participate.

~~~
Brakenshire
This is surely a monopolies issue, Google using its search dominance to weigh
into a separate market (newspaper/magazine publishing).

------
QueensGambit
AMP crossed over into monopolistic territory when Google search engine decided
to rank them better. In fact as a user, I always found Google Assistant
opening a news article as AMP annoying, because, I couldn't read the comments
about the article. Worse still, there was no link to the original article in
AMP. So, when the search engine ranks them better, I wonder what the criteria
is? Do users actually want the AMP articles instead of original ones, which is
not true in my case? If that's the case with everyone, then it is of no one's
interest except Google [1].

[1] [https://www.politico.eu/article/google-amp-accelerated-
mobil...](https://www.politico.eu/article/google-amp-accelerated-mobile-pages-
competition-antitrust-margrethe-vestager-mobile-android/)

~~~
tannhaeuser
There's a simple remedy: use DuckDuckGo and Firefox (like all people in the
civilized Web). I have yet to see a single AMP search result. How come we're
being brainwashed into thinking it's a good idea to rely on search results
produced by the world's largest ad network? Because Google never would send
you to the pages having the most ads, would they?

Of course this doesn't address Google's potential anti-competitive behaviour
which is a case for antitrust investigation not witch hunt.

~~~
rrix2
> like all people in the civilized Web

Friend, I use DDG and Firefox exclusively and still feel like this is not a
useful thing to say

------
apeace
As always, discussion around AMP is missing anything about users. I've had
friends tell me they always click AMP links first because they're so much
faster. Why wouldn't users love AMP?

Also as always, discussion is void of alternate solutions.

I find it funny that so many of these threads fall back to, "If publishers
would just stop stuffing megabytes of Javascript into their web pages we'd be
fine!"

Isn't that what AMP is about? It's an open standard, one Javascript codebase
that can be delivered once and cached.

AMP also doesn't "break normal links":
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13467736](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13467736)

If you think the future of the web --- even just reading articles --- is plain
HTML and CSS, then it's no wonder you see AMP as a bad thing and not a good
thing _for users_.

I'd love to hear alternate solutions. How can we deliver article content to
users lightning-fast, and still deliver them the things they want like
recommendations, sharing, image carousels, etc?

~~~
influx
Users loved AOL and Compuserve too. Doesn't mean it was good for the web as a
whole, and ultimately users were better served having an open web.

~~~
apeace
I hear your argument, but my issue with it is that AMP is in fact open.
They're accepting pull requests on Github[1] and other providers have already
implemented AMP on their own, no Google involved[2].

HN is just bursting with NIH on this issue. I'm not seeing any substantive
arguments, no alternatives offered, and no consideration for what users
actually want.

This article in particular seems to be droning on about "intentions",
"messaging", and "long-term solutions".

To all of HN: if you don't like AMP, shut up and code :)

[1]
[https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml](https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml)

[2] [https://blog.cloudflare.com/accelerated-
mobile/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/accelerated-mobile/)

~~~
influx
I would have zero issues with AMP if it wasn't hosted on Google.com.

~~~
dlp211
AMP can be and is hosted from multiple locations. Anyone can launch an AMP
cache.

------
simion314
AMP is so obvious anti competitive, the page rank algorithm should treat equal
pages that load as fast, now a plain html page, no JS or adds would have less
rank then a fancy AMP page because Google can't track people.

~~~
superkuh
>obvious anti competitive

AMP pages are only potentially perceived as 'fast' when you access them
through google's search. When you do that all the AMP links' assets are pre-
loaded in the background so it seems fast when you click through. But AMP
pages themselves are just the same speed as anything else or slower when
access without google's monopoly position pre-load.

------
sebazzz
I have not looked very into AMP very thorough, but isn't does AMP simply to
make your webpage lean-and-mean, which can be done without AMP and simply with
some common sense?

------
ergo14
> The same process is almost certain to occur with React—it’s a good bet there
> will be a standardised equivalent to the virtual DOM at some point.

That makes no sense...

------
yoz-y
To play the devil's advocate: it took a decade for jQuery to "make itself
obsolete". AMP is still young.

------
sfoblowsjose
Stop crying and use duckduckgo, problem solved.

~~~
yoz-y
This does not solve the problem that your webpage will be buried under a ton
of AMPified results when most of the people search for it.

~~~
sfoblowsjose
So DuckDuck go needs to prioritize non AMP pages?

~~~
detaro
How does that solve the problem that 99 % of your (potential) website visitors
do not use DuckDuckGo?

~~~
sfoblowsjose
So people want to use Googles platform but don't want to use their technology.
This doesn't make any sense.

~~~
detaro
Why doesn't it make sense? People rely on being in Google results for better
or worse, that doesn't mean they have to like everything Google does or
demands to shape those results.

~~~
sfoblowsjose
"People rely on being in Google results for better or worse". Use duckduckgo
if they don't like it. Google doesn't owe anybody anything. It like wanting to
use Facebook resources but not wanting to use their sdk and tos. The entire
conversation about AMP is pathetic. Don't like it don't use it.

~~~
detaro
Again, what does the site owner using DDG change about their visitors?

And _" Google doesn't owe anybody anything."_ is just an incredibly lazy
argument and not a good reason for why people shouldn't criticize what they
do.

~~~
sfoblowsjose
So the way it works... You create a site, submit it to a search engine. You do
this so your site can be found. Why is this so hard for you?

~~~
yoz-y
No, the way it works is that if you want people to go to your site from
Google, you have to spend time making a version for their own new web format
which they control because of their claims that it is faster (it isn't, they
preload all AMP pages as soon as you see the result in the search).

