[tkadlec]

FWIW, they did let performance factor, slightly, into ranking, but there was never a "fast" icon (one was rumored, but never shipped). An icon like that would've easily motivated folks, no need for AMP to be involved.

That being said, there are technical reasons why this hasn't happened yet. The good news is that some web standards (ex: https://wicg.github.io/feature-policy/) are being worked on that would (hopefully) allow Google to verify performance of sites without relying on AMP.

This would give Google no excuse to give AMP content special treatment, and would hopefully relegate AMP to what it should've been since day one: a framework for performance, but one that wasn't required or bolstered by any Google-colored carrots.

[Shoothe]

Feature policy won't help anyone measure site's performance unless your performance metric is "amount of features used".

[tkadlec]

Not by itself, but it does provide a portion of what is needed. Specifically:

> The developer may want to use the policy to assert a promise to a client or an embedder about the use—or lack of thereof—of certain features and APIs. For example, to enable certain types of "fast path" optimizations in the browser, or to assert a promise about conformance with some requirements set by other embedders - e.g. various social networks, search engines, and so on.

You're right that there's more to it though.