There's a lot of backlash against AMP on principle, which I agree with and support. However, as a non-principled web consumer, I think AMP pages are 10x better than the ad-filled, slow as molasses, jump-around-as-JavaSript-loads, video autoplaying, 'stories you might like' suggested bullshit, auto-loading 20MB heaps of steaming garbage that current news sites are. I think that AMP is a stepping stone that shows the user experience that people want but lights a fire under web developers to give them that experience without relying on Google's walled garden. How many stories of "Company X made a great product Y, but Company X is anti-consumer/evil/eats puppies, so the OSS made their own and it has grown into something great" have you heard? I think AMP is another one.<p>The web has become bloated, where people use heavy JS frameworks like React to make their blog and then load 5MB of ad JS to load 10MB autoplaying videos. I dream of a day when static site generators like Hugo and Jekyll are the norm. Let's flex our muscles and make that happen and show the world that AMP is good but openness is better.
The author has some very valid points against AMP from a technical standpoint, but for me there is a single reason that is sufficient: <i>the Web is, and should stay, free and open</i>. Indeed, I'm having really hard time trying to understand how people can be fine with AMP while fighting for the net neutrality and so on.
AMP is bad and should be resisted. It is an attack on the distributed nature of the web.<p>The web is slow because every page of text comes with megabytes of javascript cruft to spy on users and serve ads. The solution is to make web pages that don't suck.<p>AMP puts even more power in the hands of Google. Just say no.
To me, AMP is the same wallet garden that Facebook is.<p>Google and Facebook both say: "Give us your content. But without the crap. Just the content. Since we don't allow crap, users prefer the experience over here. So your content will have more readers then on your own domain.".<p>And for some reason publishers are crazy enough to do that. Instead of removing the crap on their own domains in the first place.
> It “traps” users on Google. If user were to click “x” in the screenshot above, they will be taken back to Google search results. A normal redirect would have landed users on actual BBC site, maximizing their chances of staying on that site. Instead, AMP makes it easier for users to return to Google.<p>As a user, this is what I want. I don't care about the BBC's site, I care about what I searched for. If I want to see their front page, I'll go to bbc.com.<p>I think this article (and most AMP-bashing articles) are mostly fluff about how Google is "taking over" and "forcing" people down a certain path. When in reality everybody knows this is helping users.<p>As I've said many times: propose a better solution for users to be able to load article content very quickly.<p>The real, valid issues I'm seeing mentioned in this article are:<p>* Links are to google.com, which really screws up sharing.<p>* Apparently images and scrolling can be wonky, though I have never noticed this myself (and sounds like it could be easily solved[0] if it's true).<p>So again, if you can solve this problem for users in a free, publisher-opt-in, global way without the links pointing to a third party, please share your solution.<p>By the way, if you use CloudFlare, you can enable AMP without breaking normal links[1]. It is only the Google search engine that breaks links for AMP, not AMP itself.<p>I do hope that Google adds an option in your account settings to opt-out of AMP results. That way the detractors can turn it off, and everyone else can be happy that pages load in < 1 second instead of 4-5 seconds.<p>[0] <a href="https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml</a><p>[1] <a href="https://blog.cloudflare.com/accelerated-mobile/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.cloudflare.com/accelerated-mobile/</a>
@alexkras Sorry this comes from me in Nigeria using a second-hand MotoG (1.Gen). May be your website is not loading 23 trackers + unnecessary js. But many websites, load such crap. Please especially in third-world, we have so poor phones. Only google-CDN avoids all these. (yes, google does track me but we do not all have unlimited bandwidth).
> On iPhone, AMP seems to override the default browser scrolling. As a result scrolling of AMP pages feels off.<p>Good news! iOS 11 fixes this. Safari actually has an inconsistent scrolling speed compared to the rest of the OS. iOS 11 makes all Safari pages scroll at the same speed as AMP sites (-webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch)<p>Also important distinction for people to remember - AMP is two products:<p>- CDN with preloading pages in Google Search results<p>- Framework/guidelines for building performant results<p>The 'morals' and impacts to the 'free and open web' of these two are completely different.
I have a visual impairment and one of the things I love about Chrome on Android is the ability to override sites blocking pinch to zoom (i.e. "force enable pinch to zoom").<p>AMP, also made by Google, seems to somehow get around this browser setting, making AMP sites unreadable and therefore completely useless to me.<p>Why does Google have these obvious discrepancies between their own products?
Funny thing is - I, as a reader, <i>love</i> AMP sites. If a website offers AMP, I will prefer it from normal thing.<p>It has less ads, less bloat, better signal/noise ratio, and the AMP websites look pleasant to eye. So I prefer them even on desktop, ironically.<p>I still have the issues with Google's AMP caching. But AMP itself is <i>great</i>.
Why would anybody enable it to begin with?<p>There is absolutely no reason for sites such as the one linked here to have AMP enabled. It's a pox on the web and Google has enough power as it is. The sooner AMP dies the better. If you want your site to load faster <i>get rid of the cruft</i>.
There's a deep irony in AMP also, purely anecdotally it doesn't seem to help with slow connections. I'm traveling and as such my US carrier restricts me to 2G speeds while roaming somehow, which is resulting in me seeing a lot of butchered pages. As the author mentions:<p>> AMP tries to load an image only when it becomes visible to the user, rendering a white square instead of the image. In my experience I’ve seen it fail fairly regularly, leaving the article with an empty white square instead of the image.<p>Text content is very fast, but images either don't load or partially load making the reading experience pretty poor.
The author is dead-on. I wish more publishers would resist and stop supporting AMP. As an end-user I dislike its UX and how it obfuscates the actual source in links I send and receive. Its man-in-the-middle approach is also highly undesirable.<p>I've found one way to mostly work around it while still using Google as my default search engine and that is to use encrypted.google.com. Obviously this doesn't remove AMP from links sent to me but it's something.<p>I'm sure it's only a matter of time before Google closes that loophole.
Since your site is actually going through Google's cache, they could add any additional tracking, etc they like, I'm sure they're already doing this. If you don't run Adsense or Google Analytics or anything else Google JS already on your site this gives them a new opportunity to further track users behaviour with a seemingly "friendly" mobile method. It's all about tracking users and selling more ads while keeping eyeballs on Google. You're giving up control of your own site and brand, at a great expense, for their benefit.<p>No thanks.
Good! I stand firmly against AMP and the centralisation of the web, it's a predatory move to increase Google's prevalence online, and one I will not be supporting with any of my upcoming projects.
Maybe I don't understand AMP, but what value does it bring over having a very lean CSS and keep JS to the strict minimum? Last time I checked, a plain vanilla HTML page with a bit of embedded CSS (and perhaps a few <i>async</i> JS functions for stats) is lightning fast even on mobile.
Amp was the reply to Facebook articles the problem was because Facebook pages loaded faster more people were posting and sharing Facebook pages which is worse than Google Amp.
> Do you own a WordPress site? Turn AMP off or don’t enable it in the first place.<p>A warning - I turned off the AMP plug in and it effectively removed my site from Google for a week or so.<p><a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2016/11/removing-your-site-from-amp/" rel="nofollow">https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2016/11/removing-your-site-from-amp...</a><p>The Google cache takes ages to clear away all the now-dead links and will serve 404s to your users. A nice incentive to stay trapped in their monoculture.
> On iPhone, AMP seems to override the default browser scrolling. As a result scrolling of AMP pages feels off.<p>Oddly enough Apple is changing the scrolling behavior in Safari for iOS 11 to scroll how the amp pages do.<p><a href="https://www.macrumors.com/2017/05/22/scrolling-changes-coming-to-mobile-safari/" rel="nofollow">https://www.macrumors.com/2017/05/22/scrolling-changes-comin...</a>
I think every site should get an amp logo in Google search results and preference (same as an amp site) if the load time of the page is under 100ms. So now you have a choice, either DIY or use Google's tech to get it.<p>This way will create dozens of tech companies competing with AMP focused on making the web faster - the end result that Google supposedly wants and everyone wins!
AMP is coming for ecommerce next. Will there be checkout options other than Google? What's going to happen when voice interfaces take over. Amazon Echo already prioritises its own products.<p>I've switched to Firefox and DuckDuckGo and started moving non-tech people over (and they seem happy enough too). It's not in our interest to let the whole tech market consolidate into 5 walled gardens
AMP somehow doesn't work right on my smartphone.<p>When I go to news.google.com an click of any of the AMP links on the front page, I always get thrown back to news.google.com when I scroll on the AMP page.
"I would use a browser with javascript disabled".<p>See, this is the point where AMP provides actual benefit. Many sites don't function <i>at all</i> without JS. AMP gives me a site that actually works without the extra crap.
I've read quite a lot about AMP, but I still don't really understand for what technical reason a new markup language (AMP HTML) and an additional javascript library is required to achieve the (claimed) effect.<p>More specifically: Is there any evidence that AMP is able to provide a better result (at least in terms of performance) than just using a small subset of standard HTML, a little bit of CSS, getting rid of any javascript, and ensuring that the total page size is less than 100KB? If yes, I would be interested in the technical reasons.
Let me stress this major point. Google is NOT the web. They are but one major player. Yet when we speak of "SEO" we mean "pleasing Google". I find that reprehensible. Google is NOT fighting for a better web experience. They are trying desperately to achieve what Facebook has done... keeping users engaged. While I appreciate what Google has done to encourage web standards, they are totally screwing up with their attempt at recreating AOL. AMP is simply the latest example of keeping users on a Google site.
> Of course, the reason we have AMP is because Google wants users to see ads, something that is mostly missing with JavaScript disabled.<p>Ding ding ding — this is IMHO the real reason for both AMP and the downvoting (and down-moderation) of anti-JavaScript comments on online forums (to include HN). It's all about money. Google aren't evil; neither are publishers, startups or venture capitalists. But it's <i>hard</i> to make money from a web in which end users are in control, and <i>easy</i> to make money if they are relatively powerless. Google, publishers, startups & venture capitalists alike all want to make money, and thus it's in their interest to encourage technical measures which decrease end-user power. It's also in their interest to discourage social discussions which support technical measures which <i>increase</i> end-user power. They don't consciously think in this terms, of course (in the words of Upton Sinclair, 'It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it'), but that is why they act as they do.<p>The thing is, every one of is an end-user at some point. Every Google employee, every CNN investor, every startup founder, every venture capitalist <i>uses</i> technology constantly.<p>It's vitally important to the freedom of the web that we resist the temptation to require JavaScript, that we resist the lure of AMP, that we resist the siren song of further net centralisation. We have nothing to lose but our chains!
> I am really surprised that big publishers are not bothered by this fact as much as I am.<p>I suspect they <i>are</i> just as bothered, but don't really have a choice about this either. Placement on the search results page is so valuable that Google holds a really big stick when introducing new 'standards' like this.<p>Just look how little of a typical mobile SERP is real 'organic' content now: <a href="http://imgur.com/UhNZvL2" rel="nofollow">http://imgur.com/UhNZvL2</a>
I agree with most of the article, but I think that my browsing experience with news (and similar) websites has been improved overall by AMP in a way that I almost regret visiting websites that offer no support for it. On the other hand, I also think that publishers need more control over their content and how they serve it to their users. Having said that, if AMP were to be integrated with GCP it could improve the service for everyone involved, not only publishers and consumers (yes, even for Google itself); for example, a publisher could have an AMP Cloud Storage bucket configured under the domain of the publisher in order to use the its identity and not google's one. On the consumer's end it could be as simple as a switch to turn off amp results for a single session or for every single one. At the end of the day, lets not forget that it is a fairly new approach to improve the web experience (and not a bad one at all) and there are options and many paths that AMP could follow in order to become a better experience for everyone.
I was about to post that AMP breaks scrolling on my iPhone (thus rendering all AMP-intercepted websites unusable), but it looks like they finally realized it and stopped showing AMP results to my version of iOS. :thumbsup:
People should also stop making Android apps whenever a website is perfectly suited, but of course that won't happen.<p>A webview is a bit like AMP but it is still better then a true native Android app (when it is easily avoidable).
From a user perspective, the speed of AMP is nice but I absolutely hate not being able to see the original URL of a site.<p>I want to see the original URL, certainly not a CDN mirror URL that could obfuscate or muddy the source.
AMP is bad for publishers, but even worse for publishers who don't get on board.<p>It's similar to Yelp's strategy: create a new problem for businesses, then sell them a (partial) solution to it.
I have enjoyed this AMP saga, and really look forward to the finale: how turning off AMP impacted SEO. Since the author has the "before" picture with AMP enabled, I'm really curious what the "after" will look like.<p>EDIT: I'm curious about the downvotes - care to elaborate what you disagree with? The author indicated that SEO was a driving force for using AMP, so I think that being curious about the outcome would be acceptable...
On one hand google's AMP is ruining the open web.<p>On the other hand, mobile pages suck. Too many ads, annoying popups and interstitials, and tracking scripts.
I don't even know what AMP is for, but I know if I click an AMP result on my phone, it won't load anything but a white screen. So one of my content blockers must be working...
AMP is the perfect way to punish big publishers for their slow websites. Google can't punish them by simply lowering their rankings, people want to see those big publishers.
> On iPhone, AMP seems to override the default browser scrolling. As a result scrolling of AMP pages feels off.<p>Thought it felt wrong. Makes me want to use Google less and less
In the 90s web pages loaded instantly. Now we have faster computers and faster networks, but apparently we need something like AMP to make the web fast. We have regressed.
AMP also sucks for accessibility. Try this on Android's Chrome:<p>* Do a Google query containing an AMP result<p>* Zoom in the Google search (since it's not very accessible either)<p>* Open an AMP page<p>Result: You can't zoom out anymore and left-to-right scrolling is unavailable in this state. So you have to go back, zoom out and click the link again. After which you can sometimes zoom back in again.<p>This makes browsing a real hassle. I know Google doesn't care that much about accessibility, but boy this drives me crazy almost every day of the week.
Having suffered through unbelievably atrocious mobile news sites, I now refuse to open any news website that's NOT AMP.<p>Those criticizing AMP have it wrong, Google could have very well just bypassed AMP for "instant publisher app" (something that if Apple did the same people (Gruber etc.) would wax poetic about how it was stroke of genius), instead you at least get to keep HTML/JS/CSS stack, without any "gatekeepers" like the Apple App Store.<p>So yeah unless you are a mobile App developer, AMP is great for both developers and readers!