[brentonator]

I invite you to go to your local Fox/ABC/CBS channel's website and TRY to read an article vs AMP.

AMP is about stopping....that. It's indescribable how horrible these companies have become.

1. Auto-playing ads 2. Scroll-jacking 3. Overlay...after overlay... after overlay. 4. Popover 5. Paywall 6. Popover again for good taste. 7. Oops you scrolled too far better redirect you to another page entirely. 8. You wanted the video version of this article right? Better force you to read the article in 20% of the screen so all of our ads, bars, and video can fit on the page.

[ogre_codes]

This doesn't address those problems, it has effectively created a second, proprietary web which is only accessible from the Google home page.

If Google actually wanted to improve the web, they wouldn't be splintering it, they would reward publishers with better search placement for building user-friendly sites. As it is, AMP is little more than a way to ensure the "Google" web is better than the non-Google web. Which of course funnels money into Google's pockets.

[gregable]

AMP pages are just HTML. Publishers can and do use AMP pages as their "regular" pages that every user sees, not just those coming from Google. Other aggregators (Bing, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc) link to AMP versions. These pages are far from only accessible from Google queries.

[ogre_codes]

Publishers can and some do, but from what I've seen, the overwhelming majority do not. The overwhelming majority of "modern" web-sites are a shit show. If that wasn't the case, there would be no need for AMP.

[saagarjha]

If they’re just HTML pages, why would I use AMP?

[lern_too_spel]

Because, as you have repeatedly shown you already know, AMP pages are a constrained HTML that supports safe prerendering. Why ask a question you already know the answer to?

[saagarjha]

> AMP pages are a constrained HTML that supports safe prerendering

Then they're not HTML, are they? As other commenters have pointed out, nobody is using the constrained set of AMP as their main page, precisely because it's not "just HTML". (And specifically, Google controls which subset of HTML this is.)

[lern_too_spel]

> Then they're not HTML, are they?

A square has four sides that are equal length. Does that make it not a rectangle?

> As other commenters have pointed out, nobody is using the constrained set of AMP as their main page

People don't use squares where they need oblong rectangles, but that doesn't mean squares are not rectangles.

> And specifically, Google controls which subset of HTML this is.

No, the technical steering committee of the AMP project at the OpenJS Foundation determines that. Most of the members of that committee do not work for Google.

[tyingq]

Google is capable of driving SERP and carousel position based on the performance of the site. They don't need AMP for that. AMP is very much about creating an semi-walled garden. Any performance benefit is the lovely exterior of the Trojan horse.

[bduerst]

And has been. Look at how well that worked for mobile web.

[tyingq]

Sorry, "has been" what?

You mean Google is using performance, in a meaningful way, to drive SERP and Carousel placement?

If so, I disagree. They talk about it. They don't do it in a way that drives behaviour. They could.

A significant drop plus a webmaster tools message that says why, would work.

[privateSFacct]

No kidding

Despite all the claims that AMP is only faster because of preload, if you actually look at these HTML sites on big news orgs they are MONSTROSITIES. Check out dev tools, the number of network requests is wild. The page is so insanely dynamic do old / slow computers even run it well?

From script size to dome/paint reflows etc etc to third party javascript having total access to your page - much of that is limited with AMP. I think third party javascript is forced into an iframe sandbox, can only be async with a web worker, limited in size acrosss ALL scripts etc.

[hayyyyydos]

> 3. Overlay...after overlay... after overlay.

amp-sticky-ad, amp-video-docking, amp-app-banner

> 4. Popover

amp-fx-flying-carpet

> 5. Paywall

amp-access, amp-access-poool

> 7. Oops you scrolled too far better redirect you to another page entirely.

amp-next-page

> 8. You wanted the video version of this article right? Better force you to read the article in 20% of the screen so all of our ads, bars, and video can fit on the page.

amp-sticky-ad, amp-video-docking

[aembleton]

Can probably solve all of that by switching off Javascript.

[zelly]

uBlock Origin and uMatrix can give you the AMP experience without AMP, but the vast majority of users won't use them. I see the need for AMP but it just enables these bad corporate websites, as if CNN/FOX/Quora etc. can't afford to clean up their pages.

It would be better to just completely penalize blogs that paywall or otherwise make content unreadable. It's not like news articles are ever scarce. I don't know what they're doing as a search engine if I get any results that are this opaque.