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AMP for email is a terrible idea

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Re: AMP for email is a terrible idea

#301

Post by PeterisP »

bob_theslob646 wrote: post #89

>What Google wants to do is bridge that moat, essentially to allow applications to run inside emails, limited ones to be sure, but by definition the kind of thing that belongs on the other side of the moat. How is this bad? I do not understand the hate? If you do not like the product then move on. I can see this working well on a mobile devices, not sure how it will work on other platforms, but I'm definitely open to…

The problem is that in this scenario someone else (i.e. the sender) is choosing the product/application they want to run on my device in my app. Unlike a web page, where I (hopefully) intend to use it and "pull" the app, this is designing a system where arbitrary apps and interfaces can be pushed to me by others, often not with my best interests in mind.

I don't want my email client to be part of such a system. If I want to follow the advice of "if you do not like the product then move on", then it's not sufficient for me to simply not use this feature in messages I send, this requires that messages I receive don't/can't use this feature.

Re: AMP for email is a terrible idea

#302

Post by diaz »

Soooo, is it now that someone shall explain what exactly is this AMP thing in a tldr? No really into searching for it. Where do people actually see or use this tech? I don't think I ever used it.

Re: AMP for email is a terrible idea

#304

Post by cromwellian »

jbg_ wrote: post #227
verifex wrote: post #178

I can't believe I read through this article and most all of the comments here with no mention of what the hell AMP actually is, so I did a bit of Googling so that someone somewhere won't have to. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerated_Mobile_Pages ): They are a competing technology with Facebook's Instant Articles that restricts the page from doing practically anything that isn't p…

You left out the very important detail that practically speaking, your content also needs to be hosted on Google's CDN if you want to get any of the benefits that content creators are likely to care about (being boosted in SERPs).

Hosting on Google’s CDN is not a requirement. There are third party AMP-caches, for example Cloudflare runs one.

It would help if the anti-AMP hysteria stays to the facts.

Re: AMP for email is a terrible idea

#305

Post by jacquesm »

Qwertious wrote: post #212
jacquesm wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only on HN...

I also point this out whenever someone mentions the frog analogy on reddit. So, also on reddit.

Maybe you should try to contribute to the discussion instead of trying to derail it with trivia? Especially if that's something you do repeatedly.

Re: AMP for email is a terrible idea

#306

Post by StavrosK »

mstade wrote: post #270
madeofpalk wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that's missing here is the email _client_ story. I really like Google's Inbox and there's no amount of money I can pay anyone else for a similar experience.

I thought the same, until I actually made the switch. Mileage varies of course, but in my case it turns out I don't miss any features at all. Ever since email clients started to look more like todo apps I've hunted for the perfect client, but turns out I didn't need much more than a simple client and some flags. It also helps that FastMail makes email aliases super easy, so I have many different emails going to the s…

Oh god yes. I have a few aliases and gmail was terrible with them. Fastmail is perfect.

Re: AMP for email is a terrible idea

#307

Post by shao87 »

pedrogpimenta wrote: post #295
shao87 wrote: post #283

I've left Gmail for Tutanota a long time ago. I prefer having a niche service that focuses on privacy and is committed to open source. They'll even release the app on F-Droid soon, couldn't be more psyched: https://tutanota.com/blog/posts/secure-mail-open-source

Why Tutanota? Which were the services you compared?

I didn't compare much, but to me Tutanota is exactly the opposite to Gmail and that's what I love. It's ad-free, no tracking, no scanning of data. Once it has the app on F-Droid it's the only email service (to my knowledge) that enables you to use it without any attachment to Google.

Re: AMP for email is a terrible idea

#308

Post by hrktb »

sam_goody wrote: post #284
RobertRoberts wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their search products are a monopoly, their email is not. I provide paid email services for my clients, they can use Gmail if they want, or not. But for SEO, it's Google all the way down...

Their email _is_ dominant enough to be considered a monopoly. Simply because if they start pushing some format, everyone must go along with them. Your private server can afford to not be inter operable with Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL, but not Google. And you can rest assured that email you send, anywhere, will eventually be forwarded to someone on a Google server. If not directly, than via Google Apps. But in literal…

If by Microsoft you mean Exchange server, not being compatible will be a literal deal breaker in doing business.

An awful lot of big players won’t host their email on someone else’s service, so gmail is just not an option. If you deal with any business using primarily windows, there will also be a huge probability it’s running a Microsoft stack in full, from account management, email to file hosting.

Re: AMP for email is a terrible idea

#309

Post by vog »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #275
wklauss wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I don't disagree with that. I think the view that drives AMP is misguided and self-serving for Google. I do, however, like to come to HN because it tends to be a very civil space in which to share opinions, not a vehicle for attention seekers to spout whatever false equivalences their brain just come up with. As far as I'm concerned everyone here is entitled to their opinion and I have never seen anyone's voice s…

Saying something unpopular in most cases shouldn't get you downvoted, but often "I know I'm going to get down voted but..." also is a lead in to complaints of hypocrisy. It reminds me of a friend that used to start off particularly rude statements by saying "I don't want to be rude but..."

> It reminds me of a friend that used to start off particularly rude statements by saying "I don't want to be rude but..."

I don't see the contradiction here.

I interpret these kind of phrases as: "I don't like to be rude, and normally I'm not, but in this case I need to make an exception."

Frankly, not everybody actually meant to say that, but this interpretation still helps to deal with those situations in a civil, non-escalating way.

Re: AMP for email is a terrible idea

#310

Post by brongondwana »

ancarda wrote: post #218

Can anyone explain what this would look like? Just an HTML email but with parts of it hosted on AMP’s CDN? Or the whole email is hosted on AMP, and non-AMP email clients just have a link (and cannot view their email without clicking on a link, and leaking the fact they viewed the email?) Would it be possible to make a filter in FastMail that automatically deletes these emails? I can imagine spammers would love to sen…

Almost certainly possible to make a regex matching filter to discard or file such emails into a folder :)
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