7 ms·

For Google, the hijack is the prime feature; AMP is the PR vehicle that makes it swallow. AMP could have been done without the huge exception, but then Google

by avaer 9y ago

For Google, the hijack is the prime feature; AMP is the PR vehicle that makes it swallow. AMP could have been done without the huge exception, but then Google couldn't profit from it.

cobookman 9y ago
I think it's also about prefetching amp pages from Google search. You can't do that without the cdn. Sure google could modify chrome to allow this and not block it. but you'd be asking for even more technical blockers. And you'd have something that only works for a small portion of the web.
- avaer 9y ago
  Sounds like the perfect use case for a nice standard CORSy web prefetch API that all browsers could implement. And this would work for at least as much of the web as is currently putting effort into AMP.
  - cramforce 9y ago
    We are thinking about this. The problem is privacy. AMP can pre-render a page from publisher X without publisher X learning that this happened. This is important for avoiding that you e.g. would suddenly see re-marketing ads for pages that you have never clicked.
baddox 9y ago
Regardless of profit, if Google just made the AMP spec and didn't incentivize publishers to use it, well, no one would use it.
- avaer 9y ago
  Not saying that's true, but if it is, wouldn't that mean AMP is not a desired product? I fully support a "faster page spec" that search engines incentivize, just like I support a ranking boost for using HTTPS. But AMP isn't that; AMP is incentivizing the payment of tribute data to Google under the veneer of a faster page spec, to steer the rhetoric more favorably for the company.
  - brianwawok 9y ago
    I want it as a consumer. If AMP went away tomorrow I would just browsing on my phone. Ad blockers are not good enough, and I refuse to fight popups and scroll blockers and blah blah blah in 2017.
    - Tom4hawk 9y ago
      Maybe it's time to change websites you visit? If website is actively trying to prevent me from reading it I just don't do that. If you are a publisher and think that you need AMP than it only means that your website sucks big time.
      - brianwawok 9y ago
        Go look at the hackernews frontpage. A good 90% of the links are to crap. Totally impossible to read on a phone. If all I wanted to do was read hacker news comments I would be safe..
  - nine_k 9y ago
    It's desired by the (non-paying) users, but not necessarily by web publishers. Here the desires of said users and Google align: they both want to see a search result quickly.
    - adrianratnapala 9y ago
      How much of this is actual desire by web publishers, and how much is just collective stupidity. Do they really want their websites to be a hassle to use? To have readers turn away because it doesn't load faster enough, or at all? I think it is more likely that they just higher web-developers, according to some cultural norm about how to select devs and about what features to specify. And those devs choose frameworks according to other cultural norms about what makes a good web framework. They are partly, but not completely constrained in this by the requested features set. The result is bloated JS applications where mere pages are required, but the complexity of the system, and the social inertia is so great that nobody can fix, or even perceive the problem.
leeoniya 9y ago
> For Google, the hijack is the prime feature; AMP is the PR vehicle that makes it swallow. this is 100% true. yet somehow there are still those who swear this isnt the case. i've ranted about it previously [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14695268 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14695268
notatoad 9y ago
>For Google, the hijack is the prime feature what does google get out of it? The experience is better for users who like fast, lightweight pages, but as far as i can tell there's no tangible direct benefit to google when you load an AMP page. The only benefit to google is if their users like the experience and continue to use Google search so they can access AMP-cached pages. If users don't like AMP, google gets no benefit. or am i missing something?
- avaer 9y ago
  Google's entire business model is tracking users as they use the internet in order to target ads. Every AMPed page is contributing work towards improving the effectiveness and appeal of Google's product (selling ads), by adding data to the targeting algorithms. If every piece of content on the internet is tracked -- through full UX hijack on Google's infrastructure -- that might be a trillion dollar holy grail.
  - shimon_e 9y ago
    Fact is, Google would already have a complete profile on you for advertising purposes even without AMP. They offer more than enough services that track you that they don't really need AMP for tracking purposes.
  - notatoad 9y ago
    you think google doesn't already track the links you click on the SERP? they aren't learning anything new by putting a tracking code on the page that link takes you to.
    - y_u_no_rust 9y ago
      it's great adblock and privacy trackers are used
    - stephenr 9y ago
      People don't share google result links. People absolutely share amp links. Also, amp being google.com hosted means no more pesky same-origin privacy protections like limiting cookies.
claudiulodro 9y ago
The fast, non-blocking content loading is the main feature. I took a radical path when developing my site and made it AMP-first. Instead of having an AMP version of each page, every page is its own AMP version because it's an AMP page. Even served from my cheapo shared web host and not Google's AMP cache, I have pretty-much instant loading of all pages: http://multithreaded.link/2017/08/lyft-customer-acquisition-costs-decrease-uber-stumbles/ http://multithreaded.link/2017/08/lyft-customer-acquisition-... It's a good framework for building super fast pages. I will admit it's a little riskier to build a site on top of technology a large company owns, but this is a risk that you also have when you use React or other frameworks.
- smt88 9y ago
  > this is a risk that you also have when you use React or other frameworks React isn't a good analogy. When you use React, you can get 100% of the value of the library, even if Facebook disappears overnight. By contrast, much of the benefit of AMP is the caching aspect, which relies on Google.
- an27 9y ago
  Nice, on FF I get a white page because Google domains lurk in my hosts file. I suppose I'm not your target audience.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- stephenr 9y ago
  > The fast, non-blocking content loading is the main feature. You don't need requires-js-to-render markup or a cache operated by a privacy whoring ad company to make a page load quickly. Edit: also, comparing to react or whatever js framework is like saying "look at my new cast iron shoes, they're so much lighter than those old lead ones".
- kmoe 9y ago
  Your "About", "Contact", and "Privacy Policy" footer links don't work (they go to "#").
notyourwork 9y ago
How does google profit from serving these pages opposed to original content creator?

by avaer 9y ago

For Google, the hijack is the prime feature; AMP is the PR vehicle that makes it swallow. AMP could have been done without the huge exception, but then Google couldn't profit from it.

cobookman 9y ago

I think it's also about prefetching amp pages from Google search. You can't do that without the cdn. Sure google could modify chrome to allow this and not block it. but you'd be asking for even more technical blockers. And you'd have something that only works for a small portion of the web.

avaer 9y ago
Sounds like the perfect use case for a nice standard CORSy web prefetch API that all browsers could implement. And this would work for at least as much of the web as is currently putting effort into AMP.
- cramforce 9y ago
  We are thinking about this. The problem is privacy. AMP can pre-render a page from publisher X without publisher X learning that this happened. This is important for avoiding that you e.g. would suddenly see re-marketing ads for pages that you have never clicked.

baddox 9y ago

Regardless of profit, if Google just made the AMP spec and didn't incentivize publishers to use it, well, no one would use it.

avaer 9y ago
Not saying that's true, but if it is, wouldn't that mean AMP is not a desired product? I fully support a "faster page spec" that search engines incentivize, just like I support a ranking boost for using HTTPS. But AMP isn't that; AMP is incentivizing the payment of tribute data to Google under the veneer of a faster page spec, to steer the rhetoric more favorably for the company.
- brianwawok 9y ago
  I want it as a consumer. If AMP went away tomorrow I would just browsing on my phone. Ad blockers are not good enough, and I refuse to fight popups and scroll blockers and blah blah blah in 2017.
  - Tom4hawk 9y ago
    Maybe it's time to change websites you visit? If website is actively trying to prevent me from reading it I just don't do that. If you are a publisher and think that you need AMP than it only means that your website sucks big time.
    - brianwawok 9y ago
      Go look at the hackernews frontpage. A good 90% of the links are to crap. Totally impossible to read on a phone. If all I wanted to do was read hacker news comments I would be safe..
- nine_k 9y ago
  It's desired by the (non-paying) users, but not necessarily by web publishers. Here the desires of said users and Google align: they both want to see a search result quickly.
  - adrianratnapala 9y ago
    How much of this is actual desire by web publishers, and how much is just collective stupidity. Do they really want their websites to be a hassle to use? To have readers turn away because it doesn't load faster enough, or at all? I think it is more likely that they just higher web-developers, according to some cultural norm about how to select devs and about what features to specify. And those devs choose frameworks according to other cultural norms about what makes a good web framework. They are partly, but not completely constrained in this by the requested features set. The result is bloated JS applications where mere pages are required, but the complexity of the system, and the social inertia is so great that nobody can fix, or even perceive the problem.

leeoniya 9y ago

> For Google, the hijack is the prime feature; AMP is the PR vehicle that makes it swallow. this is 100% true. yet somehow there are still those who swear this isnt the case. i've ranted about it previously [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14695268 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14695268

notatoad 9y ago

>For Google, the hijack is the prime feature what does google get out of it? The experience is better for users who like fast, lightweight pages, but as far as i can tell there's no tangible direct benefit to google when you load an AMP page. The only benefit to google is if their users like the experience and continue to use Google search so they can access AMP-cached pages. If users don't like AMP, google gets no benefit. or am i missing something?

avaer 9y ago
Google's entire business model is tracking users as they use the internet in order to target ads. Every AMPed page is contributing work towards improving the effectiveness and appeal of Google's product (selling ads), by adding data to the targeting algorithms. If every piece of content on the internet is tracked -- through full UX hijack on Google's infrastructure -- that might be a trillion dollar holy grail.
- shimon_e 9y ago
  Fact is, Google would already have a complete profile on you for advertising purposes even without AMP. They offer more than enough services that track you that they don't really need AMP for tracking purposes.
- notatoad 9y ago
  you think google doesn't already track the links you click on the SERP? they aren't learning anything new by putting a tracking code on the page that link takes you to.
  - y_u_no_rust 9y ago
    it's great adblock and privacy trackers are used
  - stephenr 9y ago
    People don't share google result links. People absolutely share amp links. Also, amp being google.com hosted means no more pesky same-origin privacy protections like limiting cookies.

claudiulodro 9y ago

The fast, non-blocking content loading is the main feature. I took a radical path when developing my site and made it AMP-first. Instead of having an AMP version of each page, every page is its own AMP version because it's an AMP page. Even served from my cheapo shared web host and not Google's AMP cache, I have pretty-much instant loading of all pages: http://multithreaded.link/2017/08/lyft-customer-acquisition-costs-decrease-uber-stumbles/ http://multithreaded.link/2017/08/lyft-customer-acquisition-... It's a good framework for building super fast pages. I will admit it's a little riskier to build a site on top of technology a large company owns, but this is a risk that you also have when you use React or other frameworks.

smt88 9y ago
> this is a risk that you also have when you use React or other frameworks React isn't a good analogy. When you use React, you can get 100% of the value of the library, even if Facebook disappears overnight. By contrast, much of the benefit of AMP is the caching aspect, which relies on Google.
an27 9y ago
Nice, on FF I get a white page because Google domains lurk in my hosts file. I suppose I'm not your target audience.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
stephenr 9y ago
> The fast, non-blocking content loading is the main feature. You don't need requires-js-to-render markup or a cache operated by a privacy whoring ad company to make a page load quickly. Edit: also, comparing to react or whatever js framework is like saying "look at my new cast iron shoes, they're so much lighter than those old lead ones".
kmoe 9y ago
Your "About", "Contact", and "Privacy Policy" footer links don't work (they go to "#").

notyourwork 9y ago

How does google profit from serving these pages opposed to original content creator?