
Dear Twitter, Please Make AMP Optional - akras14
https://www.alexkras.com/dear-twitter-please-make-amp-optional/
======
endorphone
I feel like this constant anti-AMP rhetoric has extraordinarily little to do
with users, and primarily are web developers who don't like that AMP rolls
back a lot of abuses. The argument isn't just "I don't like AMP", it's "No one
should like AMP!" and it grows tiresome.

~~~
matthewmacleod
No, that’s never the argument I’ve seen. It’s always been fairly well accepted
that fast pages are good and AMP helps to make pages fast. The common argument
- one which I unreservedly agree with - is that pages could be made fast
without the use of AMP and especially the web-breaking nature of Google’s
implementation.

The fact that users like AMP is not material - the problems that it causes are
not ones they are going to see in the short term.

~~~
endorphone
But the common argument is nonsensical. Yes of _course_ sites could make non-
abusive, readable content. But they don't. The non-stickiness of the web,
coupled with a low attention span of users, has yielded a sort of tragedy of
the commons. AMP is a standard to say "this can't do that".

We _should_ have an HTMLite of the sort like AMP. Like how Google Gears became
a variety of accepted web standards, it should build into something rather
than the nonsensical claim that it does nothing.

~~~
matthewmacleod
That’s fine. I agree; “HTML-lite” is fine, and most of AMP is even an
acceptable implementation of that concept.

But in practice, the way AMP is used has fundamental problems. Like the fact
that content is hosted by a third party, or that links are broken, or that
scrolling is wrecked. I like the speed of AMP; the implementation is
catastrophic and I wish dearly that I could disable its appearance in Google
search results.

~~~
hdhzy
> ... I wish dearly that I could disable its appearance in Google search
> results.

You can if you use
[https://encrypted.google.com](https://encrypted.google.com)

------
throw2016
AMP is such an egregious attack on open standards it shouldn't be possible.
The fact that it is shows the system is broken.

The whole point of having a system is to prevent short term interests from
trumping long term health. Tomorrow any monopolist can offer a short term fix
for a fraction with the public lapping it up only to run down competitors and
capture the market. This is well known monopolist behavior with strong
systemic safeguards which curiously are not working.

People keep on complaining about heavy web pages but what happened to faith in
markets and letting users decide? Surely if a website is too heavy people will
automatically seek alternatives. So there is a contradiction here, does the
market work or does it encourage a race to the bottom? Perhaps without
Google's monopolist intervention a more open less self interested solution
could have emerged.

Google is becoming a monster with an obsessive insatiable appetite for
information and knowledge. A push back is long overdue or we will pay with
private self serving entities controlling access to our own information and
knowledge.

------
WillPostForFood
Put this on the list of dozens of settings Twitter should be offering users,
like opting out of seeing likes from people you follow, or permanently turning
off "in case you missed it".

~~~
akras14
Yeah, it's a long shot. Yet they took the time to get the AMP in.

------
gregable
The website owner has added markup to a document that states:

"Hey useragent, if you understand this markup, please send mobile users to
this other URL that I have provided."

Twitter then respects the website owner's markup request.

If the markup was "here's a mobile optimized page", we wouldn't get this kind
of strong reaction in HN. If the markup was "here's a the language X variant
of the document", we wouldn't get this kind of reaction in HN.

~~~
akras14
May be you are right, I'll have to meditate on that one.

Edit:

It's a complicated situation. Google offers a great carrot/stick to get people
to adopt AMP. Publishers adopt it. Other platforms start using it. A lot of
users like this format. Some users hate it and the idea of it.

As I've mentioned before, I do think that Twitter was trying to do the right
thing for their users given the situation we are in.

It would be nice to have "request Desktop version" option for AMP, but not
sure if it's too much to ask.

~~~
gregable
If the publisher provides both AMP and non-AMP versions of a document, it is
possible to write a browser extension that will redirect to the non-AMP URL
when provided.

You would want to look for <html amp> to detect this case, and then <link
rel=canonical> to determine the possible non-AMP URL. If that URL differs from
the current URL, redirect to it.

If you personally want a per-user option here to override the publisher, this
seems like the way to go, but there is some similarity to ad-blocking here.

~~~
akras14
Yes, except it's not so easy to do in Safari on iOS.

------
berns
If Twitter is redirecting to the original URL, what's the problem? It muddies
the claim of those that oppose AMP so fervently to mix AMP the framework with
the use that Google makes of AMP. The publisher has decided to use this
technology to make their mobile page. It's perfectly valid (and well
engineered) HTML and javascript. Asking for a non AMP version of a page is
like asking for the non React page or the non Bootstrap page.

~~~
sp332
Google recommends that the "canonical" link always be the one that gets
shared.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15086192](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15086192)
Implementations have been ignoring this, but it does seem more predictable,
and also less likely to break if a publisher removes AMP later.

~~~
LoSboccacc
And deep linking be damned right? Now we have to mess with the canonical url
to include the deep linked resources so that sharing works and a page that
could have been static need dinamic generation of their meta

------
ridiculous_fish
Twitter for iOS has an option to open all links in reader mode. It's awesome!

[https://medium.com/@pixeldetective/open-twitter-links-
direct...](https://medium.com/@pixeldetective/open-twitter-links-directly-in-
safaris-reader-mode-on-ios-58cc4eeaa14e)

------
gnicholas
I make a somewhat popular Chrome extension [1] designed to aid website
readability. I think this article is spot-on, and I'm going to look into
adding a feature to my Chrome extension that does precisely this article
suggests (changes "amp=1" to "amp=0" on twitter links).

Ping me if you want to try this feature in beta: nick@beelinereader.com.

1: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/beeline-
reader/ifj...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/beeline-
reader/ifjafammaookpiajfbedmacfldaiamgg?hl=en)

------
toephu2
OP does not explain WHY he wants AMP to be optional. In the other article the
author says "I don’t know why I do it, but for some reason it just doesn’t
feel “right” to me to consume the content through the AMP. It feels slightly
off, and I want the real deal even if it takes a few seconds extra to load."

That is a weak argument to persuade a major corporation to change the way
something behaves or give the option to change the way something behaves.

OP should put himself in the shoes of Twitter: "What do I get by making AMP
optional?"

...now you know what their response will be.

Edit: fair rebuttal, thanks for the response

~~~
emn13
Well, why AMP, and not plain HTML? It's pretty clear at this point that AMP
isn't any faster than simple HTML, and some of the limitations are clearly
shift control (and advantage) to platforms like google, away from the hosting
site.

I mean; stripped down pages are way overdue, but it's mixed in with some
unnecessary powergrabbing and arbitrary restrictions. And it's not like it's
hard to strip down pages.

