[lern_too_spel]

> It doesn't matter if it's prerendered, as long as it's fast enough, and fast HTML sites are fast enough.

If that were true, Bing et al would not spend resources maintaining AMP caches. It's clearly not true.

> If AMP was so good then this entire SSR wouldn't even be necessary

This just shows that you don't know what AMP does. It allows prerendering from the link aggregator, and it does this well enough that every competent search engine implements it. The problem this solves is that people share AMP links directly, which can't be prerendered because they aren't loaded until someone puts the link in the location bar. In this case, it is slower than plain HTML, but this isn't the case AMP is meant to solve. By using SSR, they can make it faster than most plain HTML and just slightly slower than hand-optimized HTML with above the fold optimizations.

> You also seem to argue that because Facebook Instant Article and Apple News exist, AMP must also compete. I'm saying none of them are needed and creating yet another standard to push onto publishers because others have done it is poor justification.

The publishers use it, and as we demonstrated above with Bing's A/B testing, the users want it. What more justification do you need?

> If Google wants to, it can force speed standards that change the majority of websites overnight. It can implement rules and restrictions in its adserver that change the majority of ads overnight. It can optimize Google analytics that change the majority of tracking overnight.

Who says they don't? None of those solve the problem that AMP solves, which is instant loading of pages .

> Facebook doesn't pressure IA and normal links work just fine. Apple News is new inventory and doesn't take away from Safari or the web.

It's the same with the search engines and AMP.

> And RSS is completely irrelevant and nothing more than a feed of updates where pubs can share as much or as little as they want.

So what you're saying is that RSS is exactly like AMP, where pubs can share as much or as little as they want.

[manigandham]

Your arguments are circular and repetitive. Publishers do not want AMP. Users dont care about AMP, just fast sites. "Instant" is a marketing gimmick and makes no material difference when sites are fast enough. AMP is not necessary to make sites fast enough.

Google can influence site speed through SERP rankings, speed that is lacking primarily because of its other products, but instead it's forcing AMP pages. This is the fundamental problem that you are not acknowledging. There is no way around AMP if you don't want to lose ranking on an existing search results page.

FB doesn't treat IA ranking differently from links. RSS doesn't treat content differently. Apple News doesn't even support the web and can already accept RSS feeds. They also get plenty of critique that you're ignoring. Have you ever worked with a publisher?

[lern_too_spel]

Your arguments are unsupported by evidence.

> Users dont care about AMP, just fast sites.

Then why does every major search engine support it? They're trying to please their users, so they just need fast, not instant

> "Instant" is a marketing gimmick and makes no material difference when sites are fast enough.

Instant means actually instant, not just fast. Of course it makes a difference, or the search engines, Apple, and Facebook would not put in the resources to enable it.

Your current problem is that you're confusing your hatred for Google's search results ranking with AMP. If you don't like how Google ranks its results, just use a different search engine. Bing ranks differently and also uses AMP.

[manigandham]

The comments on this page alone are evidence, let alone the 100s of publishers my company has business relationships with and the feedback I get.

The only speed that search engines are responsible for is the results page. AMP has nothing to do with their user experience. And as stated several times, Bing joined for the same reason Google forces it, for more control over data by never leaving their domains.

And no, the ranking is not my problem. I don't know where you came up with that. The argument is that publishers lose ranking unless they use AMP and the same effective speed can be provided in much more neutral and friendly ways that doesn't require an extra copy of the site.

Anyways, it's clear that you're religiously defending AMP at this point with no acknowledgement of any of the arguments by myself or others on this page so I'll end it here.

[lern_too_spel]

> The comments on this page alone are evidence.... AMP has nothing to do with their user experience.

The comments on this page are from people who don't understand what AMP does and have a blind hatred for anything produced by Google, as I have repeatedly demonstrated. If people actually didn't like AMP, Bing wouldn't spend the money to support it.

> And as stated several times, Bing joined for the same reason Google forces it, for more control over data by never leaving their domains.

Where has that been stated several times? This is the first time you have used "Bing" in any comment in this thread. If it were really the case that people prefer slower loading articles, it would be a competitive advantage for a search engine not to support AMP.

> And no, the ranking is not my problem. I don't know where you came up with that.

Let me refresh your memory:

"There is no way around AMP if you don't want to lose ranking on an existing search results page. FB doesn't treat IA ranking differently from links. RSS doesn't treat content differently."

Notice how you even confuse a publishing technology (RSS) with ranking.

> The argument is that publishers lose ranking unless they use AMP

Because users prefer fast loading results! If users preferred slower loading results, a competing search engine could rank non-AMP results higher than AMP results or not show AMP results at all to win users from the search engine that shows instant loading AMP results.

> with no acknowledgement of any of the arguments by myself or others

I've quoted your arguments and addressed each one. As I've shown above, you've pretended arguments were made that weren't, and now you're blaming me for not acknowledging these phantom arguments.

[manigandham]

Saying things like "blind hatred for anything produced by Google" isn't accurate or productive.

Bing cares about control like Google, that's why they also implemented it. I stated this, you quoted this, and yet you're changing the argument to be about slow sites for some reason. They are not related. Users can get fast sites as a secondary benefit of more control by search engines through AMP.

Nobody is confused about RSS, but you brought it up first and said AMP was the same. However using RSS does not give you higher placement. Are you disagreeing with that?

As for the rest, I'll try one last time: Users want fast sites, and nobody said they didn't, but Google can influence this speed through rankings without AMP. Rank sites by speed and you get the same outcome with sites that are fast enough. Instant is not necessary and doesn't nearly outweigh the extra cost of implementation and maintenance. This has been the argument this whole time, one that you haven't provided any rebuttal against.

[lern_too_spel]

> Saying things like "blind hatred for anything produced by Google" isn't accurate or productive.

I don't see anybody complaining about Bing's AMP usage, do you? Most of the commenters don't understand what AMP does, but they still hate it. You yourself didn't understand how AMP worked when we started this discussion, wondering why origin SSR was necessary when it is obvious to anyone who understands what AMP does, yet despite not understanding the problem AMP solves, you still hate it.

Google does some shady things, but contributing to AMP is not one of them. In fact, AMP is far less shady than its competing technologies that get far less attention on HN.

> However using RSS does not give you higher placement. Are you disagreeing with that?

What does that have to do with anything? Publishers implement RSS, which allows instant loading but gives even less control to publishers than AMP does, yet you are not complaining about RSS. As far as placement, implementing RSS gives them placement in news aggregators including Apple News. Forget about poor ranking — you can't get placement at all in these systems with just a plain HTML page and instead have to hand full control over to the aggregators.

> Google can influence this speed through rankings without AMP.

Who said they don't?

> Instant is not necessary

Says who? If instant weren't necessary, explain Apple News. They could have implemented it as links to existing web pages, but they instead make publishers give them a feed to ingest.

> This has been the argument this whole time, one that you haven't provided any rebuttal against.

I've repeatedly rebutted it by saying instant is necessary. You've been sticking your fingers in your ears and pretending it isn't. I strongly prefer to click on AMP links, and I can guarantee that most other users do as well, or why would the search engines bother labeling them with an icon?

If it were just about control, there is no reason to tell the user ahead of time that a particular link is to an AMP page. If it were just about control, what is the point of SSR on the origin and signed exchanges to make shared links not go to Google or Bing?

[dmitriid]

> The publishers use it

You mean those same publishers who now say that AMP is bullshit, doesn't deliver on any of the original promises and causes problems? https://digiday.com/media/google-amp-beat-facebook-instant-a...

> as we demonstrated above with Bing's A/B testing, the users want it.

Users want faster webpages. Thank you, Captain Obvious.

[lern_too_spel]

> Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Continuing in the Captain Obvious role, how do you propose to replace FBIA, Apple News, RSS, and AMP with something that both users and publishers love? AMP is just as fast as the first three, and it provides more control to the publishers than the first three, yet you are not ranting about the first three. Why?