[markkat]

This committee is window-dressing. AMP is about Google revenue alone, remaking the web as a consumer portal, not an open platform for information exchange and creativity.

The premise that the web ought to compete with native app experience is flawed to begin with. Executing that goal through a corporate gateway is perverse.

[emodendroket]

Why is that premise flawed? That's precisely what happens on mobile platforms. At least on desktops we recognize the absurdity of installing an app for every Web page we want to use

[watwut]

Literally no one is installing an app for every web page they use.

The kind of web pages that people install as apps are made significantly worst by amp - like reddit is unuseable monstrosity with amp.

[emodendroket]

I'm not sure what the New York Times app would give me that AMP wouldn't.

[jolux]

It’s actually navigable, supports offline viewing, and isn’t a weird, messed up approximation of a real webpage the way AMP is.

[emodendroket]

Better navigation and offline viewing might make sense if I really want to read the New York Times specifically, but that probably isn't the case if I'm getting there by way of a search engine.

[watwut]

You complained about people using apps instead of web. Then you said "I'm not sure what the New York Times app would give me that AMP wouldn't"

And when people answered with tangible good reasons to use app instead of web ... you move goalposts.

[varispeed]

This is also to push out other advertisers out of the market. Given the glaringly obvious conflict of interest, Google should have never been allowed to create such "standard". I hope this will lead to forced break up of this company.

[freebreakfast]

AMP is a concern, but I am more concerned about HTML.

Google holds a large amount of sway over HTML's direction. This is derived from the fact that WHATWG is the standards body for HTML. (W3C is just a rubber stamp per the agreement between the two last year.) And this group is directed by four companies--Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla.

The power balance in this relationship heavily favors Google. It controls the purse of Mozilla. Microsoft's browser is based on Chromium. And Chrome already owns the majority of the market.

What Google wants from HTML, Google can get. Even if there is push back from others, they only need to release "beta" versions of their changes for the standard, wait for developers to take advantage of them, and then reintroduce the suggestions. At that point, Apple and the others will have little resource.

Google is simply too powerful and a threat to the open Web.

[vulcan01]

One partial solution is to get Microsoft off the WHATWG, because they also use Chromium.

Perhaps instead of looking at which companies release browsers, they should just start putting the Chromium, WebKit, and Gecko teams there.

[WorldMaker]

Microsoft isn't just rubber stamping Google's initiatives because they are using Chromium and have been shown to have different priorities, though. More seats at the table is obviously a good thing, but removing Microsoft from a seat at the table at the same time won't help and might make things worse.

[ocdtrekkie]

I never felt like anyone outside Google had any power to fix AMP, but Terrence is one of the good guys, he got involved on our behalf to see if anything could be done.

[lern_too_spel]

Terence didn't say how he would fix it. From reading the article, it's unclear if he even understands what AMP does.

[ocdtrekkie]

Terence has been involved in AMP's advisory committee since the beginning. Suggesting he "doesn't even understand what it does" isn't really an even reasonable perspective.

[Chris2048]

> remaking the web as a consumer portal, not an open platform for information exchange and creativity

True, but that assumes without google, that's what we have. In fact, many of the content providers themselves don't want free exchange, every website trying to be it's own walled garden.

If google can force the hand of those trying to lock their content in their own formats, there maybe benefit to the clout of google.

[zentiggr]

AMP is Google's way of subsuming other sites content into their own engine, as much as they can get away with, anyway.

I don't see this as Google trying to open up other sites, as much as it is trying to rebrand and gut other sites.

I feel bad for any other provider out there who thinks they 'have to' create AMP pages. They really shouldn't, if they don't it'll die like so many other Google fiascos.

[Chris2048]

I don't see it as Google trying to open up other sites either, I'm saying it might have this effect whether it's Googles aim or not.