I mean the detractors are still right. The sites that AMP is relevant for are mostly static content that can be made blazing fast without AMP.
The kick in the pants was really Google throwing their weight around something which could have been done in a number of different things. Hell Google could have charged to use their CDN in exchange for totally not favorable ranking and an icon and raked in the cash.
That's why it so perfectly illustrates the problem. The detractors are correct, a website can be made fast without AMP. But that isn't the problem AMP solves.
To draw a crude analogy- I don't have a problem with alcohol, I don't drink in excess and that's all there is to it. So clearly, there's no reason for AA or any other detox program to exist.
The problem AMP is trying to solve is very real. The way AMP is trying to solve the problem though, is bullshit. If sites are too large, and load too slow, derank them.
That's a much better method than pushing sites to use a shitty lock-in system.
I don't see it that way. I think AMP was a wake up call to other websites and everyone starting prioritizing speed and responsiveness.
Early 2000s we had crappy Flash Websites that took a minute to load. I refused to build websites with Flash and would only build websites that were HTML and JavaScript (I HATED JS back than (Maybe it was just me)). I stopped getting business because that norm was slow websites that were pretty and had animations.
After Mobile took off in the early 2010's we had faster connections and those Flash sites worked much faster, except for mobile. Now everything is responsive and 2 or 3 seconds feels like a lifetime.
AMP changed the internet in my opinion, and maybe it isn't needed any more.
The kick in the pants was really Google throwing their weight around something which could have been done in a number of different things. Hell Google could have charged to use their CDN in exchange for totally not favorable ranking and an icon and raked in the cash.