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AMP: the missing controversy

ferdychristant.com

11–20 of 143 posts

Re: AMP: the missing controversy

#11
Google can't "simply preload resources of non-AMP pages". Using a CDN means they can get more consistent load times and avoid the inevitable privacy concerns that come with loading 3rd party content the user may never actually click on.

Re: AMP: the missing controversy

#12
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we have to participate. It claims to be an open standard; we should participate (or try to participate) in the open standard. The problems AMP solves are real. They will be solved one way or another. I'm hopeful they can be solved in an HTMLite sort of way, not a whatever-Google-does sort of way. So let's think about how to improve AMP, change AMP, evolve AMP, until it becomes something else and something bet…

The best way to improve AMP is to drag it out behind the wood shed and shoot it. People just need to get better at making mobile web pages.

I'm not saying you're wrong.

But I will say I think your wood shed idea won't work.

(Though I am very open to hearing more about it's implementation.)

Re: AMP: the missing controversy

#13

We were discussing with the AMP project tech lead over on GitHub trying to suss out details about governance and the like, and it's even scarier than we thought when it came to AMP4Email: Gmail is implementing AMP in email "the way they want to", and AMP Project is just deciding whether or not they want to support it/publish a 'standard'. I strongly recommend this for reading: https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/is…

I think we have to participate. It claims to be an open standard; we should participate (or try to participate) in the open standard. The problems AMP solves are real. They will be solved one way or another. I'm hopeful they can be solved in an HTMLite sort of way, not a whatever-Google-does sort of way. So let's think about how to improve AMP, change AMP, evolve AMP, until it becomes something else and something bet…

AMP isn't truly "open" technology. You can't even discuss its problems on Github without getting the conversation shut down. AMP is an insidious threat the the open WWW itself. It doesn't solve problems that can't be solved in better ways.

Re: AMP: the missing controversy

#16

We were discussing with the AMP project tech lead over on GitHub trying to suss out details about governance and the like, and it's even scarier than we thought when it came to AMP4Email: Gmail is implementing AMP in email "the way they want to", and AMP Project is just deciding whether or not they want to support it/publish a 'standard'. I strongly recommend this for reading: https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/is…

I think we have to participate. It claims to be an open standard; we should participate (or try to participate) in the open standard. The problems AMP solves are real. They will be solved one way or another. I'm hopeful they can be solved in an HTMLite sort of way, not a whatever-Google-does sort of way. So let's think about how to improve AMP, change AMP, evolve AMP, until it becomes something else and something bet…

I make this mistake too, but we need to stop calling it an open standard unless it's handed over to a neutral standards-making body. AMP's solution to the URL problem involves another Google-pushed web standard, webpackage. But the big difference is that webpackage is part of the WICG, a community group under the W3C. That's a real standard, this is not.

If AMP not handed over to the W3C, I don't think we can or should call it a standard.

Re: AMP: the missing controversy

#17
post #11

Google can't "simply preload resources of non-AMP pages". Using a CDN means they can get more consistent load times and avoid the inevitable privacy concerns that come with loading 3rd party content the user may never actually click on.

Being forced to load everything you read via Google is worse for privacy. There are already plenty of solutions for blocking 3rd party scripts, like Privacy Badger and umatrix.

Re: AMP: the missing controversy

#18

We were discussing with the AMP project tech lead over on GitHub trying to suss out details about governance and the like, and it's even scarier than we thought when it came to AMP4Email: Gmail is implementing AMP in email "the way they want to", and AMP Project is just deciding whether or not they want to support it/publish a 'standard'. I strongly recommend this for reading: https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/is…

I think we have to participate. It claims to be an open standard; we should participate (or try to participate) in the open standard. The problems AMP solves are real. They will be solved one way or another. I'm hopeful they can be solved in an HTMLite sort of way, not a whatever-Google-does sort of way. So let's think about how to improve AMP, change AMP, evolve AMP, until it becomes something else and something bet…

Am I reading the article right: the browser preloads resources from amp pages from the search page?

That's going to be hard to fix in an HTMLLite sorry of way.

Re: AMP: the missing controversy

#19
post #3

We were discussing with the AMP project tech lead over on GitHub trying to suss out details about governance and the like, and it's even scarier than we thought when it came to AMP4Email: Gmail is implementing AMP in email "the way they want to", and AMP Project is just deciding whether or not they want to support it/publish a 'standard'. I strongly recommend this for reading: https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/is…

I think the best thing to do is just be the kind of online citizen you want to see. It may be small but it is something you can do yourself. I will be looking for a way to move my online identity away from Google to something I control more directly. I am also going to try replacing my social media activity with email. The web is already decentralized, we just need to use it.

I just had to think a bit in the opposite direction, with respect to email. Archiving some correspondence from other contexts into it. There's a very handy tool for the archiving I'm interested in.

But... under U.S. law, online email storage over X... (I forget the exact count, something over 100 days) days old, is open to examination without a warrant.

Not that I've anything particular to hide. But moving my personal correspondence in that direction?

I may spin up a an email server under my own sub-net, just to make use of this tool and capture its output. But I'm strongly disinclined to put it on a publicly facing email server.

Re: AMP: the missing controversy

#20
post #3

We were discussing with the AMP project tech lead over on GitHub trying to suss out details about governance and the like, and it's even scarier than we thought when it came to AMP4Email: Gmail is implementing AMP in email "the way they want to", and AMP Project is just deciding whether or not they want to support it/publish a 'standard'. I strongly recommend this for reading: https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/is…

I think the best thing to do is just be the kind of online citizen you want to see. It may be small but it is something you can do yourself. I will be looking for a way to move my online identity away from Google to something I control more directly. I am also going to try replacing my social media activity with email. The web is already decentralized, we just need to use it.

I closed my G Suite account today because of Google’s announcement of AMP for Email. Luckily I didn’t have a huge Google presence in the first place beyond email which is easily IMAPed over to another server. Takeout allowed me to extract the rest: my docs as ODF, YouTube subs as RSS and contacts as ICS.

If anyone’s interested I wrote up my investigation into potential replacement mail services: http://www.robinwhittleton.com/2018/02/18/dropping-g-suite/ . In the end I went with Runbox, will see how they perform but I’m happy so far.

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