[seanwilson]

I can understand how the aspect of the control Google has over AMP isn't ideal but you can't deny AMP sites are a great user experience on mobile. Pages tend to load for me in less than 0.5 seconds even on my mobile connection. For other sites, pages can take 10 to 30 seconds to load, have pop-ups, image loading causes the page the jump up/down etc.

Making sites with small download sizes and quick rendering is a very involved process. Google have made a tool and set of guidelines that force developers to use current best practices in a way you're just not going to get by hoping all developers everywhere do it themselves. It's also a much easier sell to management (i.e. "Is our site AMP compatible?") compared to trying to push for each individual best practice to be followed which can individually only have a small benefit.

[CaptSpify]

The problem that AMP is trying to solve is definitely real. But pushing sites to add another layer on their system is the wrong way to do it, IMO. Why don't they just start rewarding systems that load fast, instead of pushing people into another google system?

[seanwilson]

> Why don't they just start rewarding systems that load fast, instead of pushing people into another google system?

This system is easy to follow and validate though. Is it AMP compatible or not AMP compatible?

[CaptSpify]

But couldn't they just have a "Here's why we won't rank you higher" check instead?

[seanwilson]

Maybe it's easy for Google to validate it this way? So AMP has a lot of limitations and if you're AMP compatible Google knows you're meeting certain base guarantees. If Google have to rate arbitrary sites and advise how to restrict them maybe it's harder to rate the performance guarantees.

I agree your approach would have a net benefit as well but Google's AMP approach of making you build your site with performance in mind from the ground up might be more effective than nudging existing poorly performing sites towards being more performance minded.

[youngtaff]

Yes, but some of the things that cause issues e.g. eager loading of JS and images are the result of internal priorities in the browser

What if instead of forcing sites to re-implement themselves using a set of custom JavaScript components they actually changed they way browsers behaved e.g. via meta tag / header etc.?

[ebola1717]

I would agree, but most of the time I click on an AMP link, it spins and doesn't load. I think it's usually reddit links, but still, that's not okay.