[bensochar]

CDN helps with the page load/latency variable of Google' PageRank but won't equal AMP.

To get AMP-like speed you'd need: CDN, no render-blocking javascript, minimized image files, "lazy-loaded" assets & inlined CSS for "Above the Fold" content. On the server side you want to cache content with something like Varnish & send it over an "Edge" network like Akamai or Fastly. Ideally everything is served over HTTP2 or SPDY.

Doing all that replicates what AMP does.

[KirinDave]

That's sort of my point: publishers seem mad at the temerity that they can't festoon their web pages with tons of stuff and then not also be put in a category that is meant to be fast.

There are other parts of AMP I am less okay with, but tbh I trust the publishers even less than I trust Google with respect to sketchy tracking bugs and data collection and useless javascript ux.