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Kill Google AMP Before It Kills the Web

posted by on Thursday May 25 2017, @05:48AM   Printer-friendly
from the the-more-you-tighten-your-grip... dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

There's been a good deal of ongoing discussion about Google AMP – Accelerated Mobile Pages.

Quite a few high-profile web developers have this year weighted in with criticism and some, following a Google conference dedicated to AMP, have cautioned users about diving in with both feet.

These, in my view, don't go far enough in stating the problem and I feel this needs to be said very clearly: Google's AMP is bad – bad in a potentially web-destroying way. Google AMP is bad news for how the web is built, it's bad news for publishers of credible online content, and it's bad news for consumers of that content. Google AMP is only good for one party: Google. Google, and possibly, purveyors of fake news.

[...] What it is, is a way for Google to obfuscate your website, usurp your content and remove any lingering notions of personal credibility from the web.

If that appeals to you, here's what you need to do. First, get rid of all your HTML and render your content in a subset of HTML that Google has approved along with a few tags it invented. Because what do those pesky standards boards know? Trust Google, it knows what it's doing. And if you don't, consider yourself not part of the future of search results.

Why a subset of HTML you ask? Well, mostly because web developers suck at their jobs and have loaded the web with a ton of JavaScript no one wants. Can't fault Google for wanting to change that. That part I can support. The less JavaScript the better.

So far AMP actually sounds appealing. Except that, hilariously, to create an AMP page you have to load a, wait for it, yes a JavaScript file from Google. Pinboard founder Maciej Cegłowski already recreated the Google AMP demo page without the Google AMP JavaScript and, unsurprisingly, it's faster than Google's version.

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by fyngyrz on Thursday May 25 2017, @03:17PM (2 children)

    by fyngyrz (6567) on Thursday May 25 2017, @03:17PM (#515495) Journal

    But a lot of users demand dynamic features

    AMP is not required to provide dynamic features.

    Also, and of course this is a choice, but you don't have to provide dynamic features; those users aren't the boss of you. You can provide a fast, efficient web page instead. People really like those, too. Just an observation. :)

    That depends on how you define "standards"

    Well, personally, I don't define "standards" as "some idea Google just had."

    particularly when your page relies on standards that browser publishers have failed to implement according to caniuse.com.

    Sounds like someone is relying on things that need fixed, not things that need replaced with something else that does not enjoy broad support.

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  • (Score: 3, Touché) by Pino P on Thursday May 25 2017, @04:08PM (1 child)

    by Pino P (4721) on Thursday May 25 2017, @04:08PM (#515525) Journal

    AMP is not required to provide dynamic features.

    I wasn't implying that it was. I was only pointing out that some features require script, not just HTML and CSS.

    Also, and of course this is a choice, but you don't have to provide dynamic features; those users aren't the boss of you.

    Users are the boss of any site operator that relies on revenue from users or from advertisers to cover the cost of continuing to maintain the site.

    • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Thursday May 25 2017, @08:20PM

      by fyngyrz (6567) on Thursday May 25 2017, @08:20PM (#515681) Journal

      Users are the boss of any site operator that relies on revenue from users or from advertisers to cover the cost of continuing to maintain the site.

      At this point, the discussion would turn to strength of one's ethics vs. indirect coercion to create things somewhere in the range of annoying to outright malware.

      I'll spare you. I'm sure you can have that conversation entirely on your own. :)