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The Problem with AMP

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Re: The Problem with AMP

#331

Post by ksk »

freehunter wrote: post #324
ksk wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I took your comment charitably and addressed the point about individual companies employing abhorrent practices (whether it be labor or otherwise). Obviously, we're not in favor of that. But your claim seems to be that an entire technological sector spanning multiple countries employs slave labor? Its hard to take you seriously at this point.

Again, I never claimed anything that you're saying I claimed. You're taking my comment charitably? Hardly. My claim is that many companies use (what amounts to) slave labor and that there are financial incentives and economic structures designed around this. It's hard to compete without it, since your competitors are going to be using it. As one example, take entry level programmers on an H1B visa making less than th…

Okay, never mind. We'll just have to bury it here. No point arguing over nothing. Have a nice day. :^)

Re: The Problem with AMP

#332

Post by bassman9000 »

IMHO, worst AMP feature it's that it's viral: when sharing the link, you're sharing the AMP link, so you force your followers to read the AMP version, and, if they share, they'll share the AMP version...

Re: The Problem with AMP

#333

Post by manigandham »

colordrops wrote: post #309
AstralStorm wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, making more money is, and shareholders tend to think in short term gains.

Are only short term gains in shareholders' best interests? Is there a legal definition? I'm asking genuinely.

No, they are not. This is a common misconception.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-cor...

Re: The Problem with AMP

#334

Post by manigandham »

wheelerwj wrote: post #172
greenspot wrote: post #162

Google is abusing its powers. The search rank is our currency and Google has pushed AMP sites to the top for some while. So, everybody is now building weird AMP layers for their sites. We went from a free to a proprietary mobile web in just a few weeks. And we can't do anything. It feels like the times when the Internet Explorer tried to rule except that more people were complaining. The open solution to a faster mob…

> Google is abusing its powers. They are a business, doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing. It's up to us to find a way to kill google and take back our internet. Edit, i love the downvotes for this. Google is legally required to act in their shareholders best interests. You all should understand fiduciary duty. They are building long term value for a massive (and growing) customer segment at the expense o…

You should understand fiduciary duty vs corporate director responsibility.

Best interest != monetary gain.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-cor...

Re: The Problem with AMP

#335

Post by manigandham »

tehlike wrote: post #124
arjie wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love amp. Loads fast. It's so fast, it almost feels native.

One of the reasons Google (and FB with instant articles) came out with is the speed, and data consumption, which matters a lot more in some countries than in others.

Google and Facebook had far better ways to affect change (by using site speed/weight to factor heavily into rankings).

Re: The Problem with AMP

#336

Post by manigandham »

There is no reason for a quasi-proprietary fork of HTML. We already have enough standards as it is.

HTML is perfectly fast. Sites are only show because of the media/ads/stuff that's put on them, most of which is a business requirement.

Factoring site speed/weight into search and traffic rankings could've easily pressured sites into making much better progress that would benefit anyone using a browser, instead of this random fork that also takes away even more of the limited time and resources that a publisher has to work on their main site.

I like Chrome and Google's efforts in making the web faster but this is one of the worst projects they've ever started.

Re: The Problem with AMP

#337

Post by xign »

jshen wrote: post #307
tehlike wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i am curious about the numbers, though i do not know internally or externally if there are numbers showing this. As a power android user, i kind of like the rss-reader-esque look and feel of the amp links. It also opens blazing fast. With these in mind, minor inconveniences (like the address bar) are probably something i wouldn't mind.

Here's the deal, nearly all of the benefits of AMP are unrelated to the masking of the URL, they are in the HTML validation aspects of AMP. Masking the URL and keeping users on Google when they think they are on Slate is a rather naked land-grab with a lot of downside for users and very little benefit to users. Why doesn't Google drop the URL masking while keeping all the real benefits of AMP? The answer, profits ove…

I'm very strongly against AMP but what you said isn't strictly true.

AMP itself allows for fast loading which is true, but to support opening pages in "zero loading time" you still need pre-loading since fast loading still means non-zero loading time. To get pre-loading working in HTML you need to 1) load the iframe of the page in the background, then 2) when the link is clicked, use history.pushState() in order to manipulate the URL to appear you have moved to another page. Unfortunately for (2) the Web History APIs need* both URLs to be on the same domain so Google has an excuse that they need to change the target URL to be under Google for this to work.

Also Google wants to present the scrolling UI that allows you to browse to other articles in the search results (potentially from other domains). This can't be done if you have completely switched to the original website.

See this link for more discussion https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/issues/6210

Personally I find this misguided at best, an excuse at worst. A fully compliant minimalistic AMP website (or even just a simple site that doesn't use AMP but follow best practices) will load incredibly quickly even without pre-loading. It's disrupting a lot of security and UX best practices (by replacing the address bar with "google.com" domain) just to achieve a very minor improvement. Furthermore they control Chrome. It's not too hard for them to push forward a web preloading standard and start implementing in Chrome.

Edit: Also for the scrolling UI it seems like another way for Google to push more engagement to their site rather than the target URL. It kind of runs counter to the open web nature IMO because there are innovations that helps previewing links already (e.g. iPhone 6s/7 3D touch) and it's the kind of behavior better implemented in the browser itself.

Re: The Problem with AMP

#339

Post by jshen »

xign wrote: post #337
jshen wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the deal, nearly all of the benefits of AMP are unrelated to the masking of the URL, they are in the HTML validation aspects of AMP. Masking the URL and keeping users on Google when they think they are on Slate is a rather naked land-grab with a lot of downside for users and very little benefit to users. Why doesn't Google drop the URL masking while keeping all the real benefits of AMP? The answer, profits ove…

I'm very strongly against AMP but what you said isn't strictly true. AMP itself allows for fast loading which is true, but to support opening pages in "zero loading time" you still need pre-loading since fast loading still means non-zero loading time. To get pre-loading working in HTML you need to 1) load the iframe of the page in the background, then 2) when the link is clicked, use history.pushState() in order to m…

I'm saying the same thing you are. Maybe I could have been more clear, but I was trying to avoid the nitty gritty tech details. Like you said, it's misguided at best and an excuse at worse. I'm asserting that it's an excuse, because it is done in a way to keep users on google for very little benefit to the user while causing very real problems for users.

Re: The Problem with AMP

#340

Post by pawadu »

towo wrote: post #308
pawadu wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've been tracking their GitHub and what is happening is that while yes, the source is open, they won't let you add anything they don't like. Well, thats basically how Android works. And with the upcoming policy changes (in CDD and GCM) things will get even worse.

It's pretty much how open source works everywhere - you have to convince the maintainer to adopt your code. If they don't, you've got the options of either being sad or forking it and trying to get people to use your subjectively better version. It's open source, not anarchist source.

But have anyone been able to convince the Android team of anything?

They are not even listening to the Linux team with their thousands of highly qualified developers and are essentially running their own fork of the kernel where everything has to be done The Google Way (TM).

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