9 ms·

Dear Twitter, Please Make AMP Optional

95 points by akras14 9y ago

gnicholas 9y ago
I make a somewhat popular Chrome extension [1] designed to aid website readability. I think this article is spot-on, and I'm going to look into adding a feature to my Chrome extension that does precisely this article suggests (changes "amp=1" to "amp=0" on twitter links). Ping me if you want to try this feature in beta: nick@beelinereader.com. 1: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/beeline-reader/ifjafammaookpiajfbedmacfldaiamgg?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/beeline-reader/ifj...
endorphone 9y ago
I feel like this constant anti-AMP rhetoric has extraordinarily little to do with users, and primarily are web developers who don't like that AMP rolls back a lot of abuses. The argument isn't just "I don't like AMP", it's "No one should like AMP!" and it grows tiresome.
- chickenfries 9y ago
  > At the same time I understand that a lot of users DO like AMP content. I completely respect their right to enjoy it. But it would be nice if Twitter provided an option to opt-out from that experience for those who don’t. - TFA
  - endorphone 9y ago
    Right. This person is saying "The last time I bitched on AMP it got hyped, so here it is again". I'm not talking about the author. I'm talking about the crowds on here that vigorously vote up everything anti-AMP.
    - chickenfries 9y ago
      You're arguing against an imaginary group of mindless AMP haters instead of the actual group of people very concerned with the far reaching implications of AMP on the open web. If it's not your concern, move on.
      - endorphone 9y ago
        No, I'm against the actual group on here, having seen this argument play out multiple times. I am not concerned about the implications of AMP, have a long history with the web, and think it is an arguably correct reaction to help protect the "open web". It is impossible to have a rational discussion on here, however, as so many are so viciously anti-AMP.
    - akras14 9y ago
      I bitch about AMP every time it finds an annoying way into my life. I have been bitching about it a lot less, since I disabled it on my site. It was actually a pro AMP article that was posted here and my response to it that "triggered" me to bitch again. https://www.alexkras.com/some-thoughts-on-amp-in-conde-nast/ https://www.alexkras.com/some-thoughts-on-amp-in-conde-nast/
      - endorphone 9y ago
        It plays to the crowd. I get it, and I'd do the same. Your original argument was that you purposefully enabled and published AMP on your site and then complained that Google `stole' your content, which normally would elicit groans and criticism on a technology site, but it played to the crowd. I'd keep playing that tune as long as people will listen.
        akras14 9y ago
        Don't worry, I got my fair share of criticism. I had no clue what AMP was when I first enabled it, all I heard was that it might help my site rank better and I was sold. I should have RTFM and never enabled it, but it's not how it played out.
        jeremy7600 9y ago
        So, your problems were of your own making. Got it.
        akras14 9y ago
        Yes, and I am very explicit about it from the beginning. Mainly to make sure others don't make the same mistakes.
    - om2 9y ago
      Instead of arguing against the actual positions claimed, you're arguing against what you imagine are people's motivations.
- fatjokes 9y ago
  +1. As a user, I love AMP and don't understand the fuss.
  - akras14 9y ago
    How would you feel if Twitter turned off the support for format that you liked, AMP in your case, even though that format was readily available, and instead forced you to use some other format you don't like? Regular web pages is the format that I personally prefer to interact with.
    - fatjokes 9y ago
      Does the format I like tend to be (even if not all) full of weird table layouts and spammy ads?
      - akras14 9y ago
        Most sites that end up peacking my interest are credible sites with regular ads. I only see benefits of AMP when I end up on crappy gossip type sites etc.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    I dislike it because it breaks scrolling, sometimes breaks completely (Reddit pages never load under AMP for me, so there's always an extra tap needed, for example), and provides essentially no benefit. Yes, they load faster, you can make pages load quickly without it.
    - comex 9y ago
      Heh, I’d have thought you of all people would be on iOS 11 beta by now, where scrolling speed is now consistent between normal pages and scrollable iframes (which is what AMP uses). Or are you referring to a different scrolling problem?
      - mikeash 9y ago
- akras14 9y ago
  You are right, it has more to do with it not being inline with the ideas of the open web, and not liking the prospects of where this can take us.
  - endorphone 9y ago
    An open standard, used by multiple parties (e.g. many services now consume AMP content), based upon HTML, consumable by just about everyone. That's about as open web as it gets. Secondly, I think the biggest strawman is this notion that it's AMP vs some conceptual "open web". That open web you like has much more formidable competitors and was the reason AMP appeared.
    - k__ 9y ago
      Hosted on google servers?
      - endorphone 9y ago
        Scripts pulled from cdn.ampproject.org. Should they be long cached on the browser? Should the browser hot replace references? Etc etc etc. There are a lot of interesting, beneficial discussions that can and should take place about this notion of a "lite" web, but instead it all gets short circuited with a losing defiance. The most tiresome is the recurring proclamation that it isn't really faster because you could technically abide by the same limitations, which completely misses the point.
        matthewmacleod 9y ago
        There are a million amazing discussions that could be had, but there’s little point in starting that when the existing implementation is so rotten.
      - s17n 9y ago
        The cache architecture is open, so that anybody (eg, Twitter) can run their own AMP cache.
- tdeck 9y ago
  My biggest problem with AMP, as a user with low vision, is that it's impossible to zoom in on images in AMP pages. I have of course checked the box in Chrome (Brave) to force enable zoom, but somehow AMP overrides that because AMP knows best that a detailed infographic or photo of a document should be no wider than my phone's display.
  - cramforce 9y ago
    AMP does not do anything in this direction, and certainly not on purpose. If it does please file a bug. We'll treat it as high priority. Note, that at the beginning of the developer preview 2 years ago, AMP did do something like this, but it was quickly fixed.
- matthewmacleod 9y ago
  No, that’s never the argument I’ve seen. It’s always been fairly well accepted that fast pages are good and AMP helps to make pages fast. The common argument - one which I unreservedly agree with - is that pages could be made fast without the use of AMP and especially the web-breaking nature of Google’s implementation. The fact that users like AMP is not material - the problems that it causes are not ones they are going to see in the short term.
  - endorphone 9y ago
    But the common argument is nonsensical. Yes of course sites could make non-abusive, readable content. But they don't. The non-stickiness of the web, coupled with a low attention span of users, has yielded a sort of tragedy of the commons. AMP is a standard to say "this can't do that". We should have an HTMLite of the sort like AMP. Like how Google Gears became a variety of accepted web standards, it should build into something rather than the nonsensical claim that it does nothing.
    - matthewmacleod 9y ago
      That’s fine. I agree; “HTML-lite” is fine, and most of AMP is even an acceptable implementation of that concept. But in practice, the way AMP is used has fundamental problems. Like the fact that content is hosted by a third party, or that links are broken, or that scrolling is wrecked. I like the speed of AMP; the implementation is catastrophic and I wish dearly that I could disable its appearance in Google search results.
      - akras14 9y ago
        +1 would love to see HTML light, and that's why I initially assumed AMP to be. Edit: Now that I think about it, Twitter does try to use AMP as HTML light, since they don't use the cache. Yet I think AMP is does not make a great HTML light, likely because it has to support the cache use case.
      - hdhzy 9y ago
        > ... I wish dearly that I could disable its appearance in Google search results. You can if you use https://encrypted.google.com https://encrypted.google.com
- LoSboccacc 9y ago
  Considrng AMP fucks with sharing links, deep linking etc it's a huge step back to wap era. It rolls back a decade of responsive innovation.
- tyingq 9y ago
  Enjoy your trojan horse. I agree it is pretty. Edit: If you can't see the progression, look up this history of froogle. For starters, publishers are accepting a banner that takes up the most valuable space and features an [X] button that goes straight to Google. Worse if your page is in the carousel. And, it gets worse from here. They will tweak the UI over time...it's not your site. It's theirs. Eventually, this turns into an AOLesque private interweb.
ridiculous_fish 9y ago
Twitter for iOS has an option to open all links in reader mode. It's awesome! https://medium.com/@pixeldetective/open-twitter-links-directly-in-safaris-reader-mode-on-ios-58cc4eeaa14e https://medium.com/@pixeldetective/open-twitter-links-direct...
berns 9y ago
If Twitter is redirecting to the original URL, what's the problem? It muddies the claim of those that oppose AMP so fervently to mix AMP the framework with the use that Google makes of AMP. The publisher has decided to use this technology to make their mobile page. It's perfectly valid (and well engineered) HTML and javascript. Asking for a non AMP version of a page is like asking for the non React page or the non Bootstrap page.
- sp332 9y ago
  Google recommends that the "canonical" link always be the one that gets shared. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15086192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15086192 Implementations have been ignoring this, but it does seem more predictable, and also less likely to break if a publisher removes AMP later.
  - LoSboccacc 9y ago
    And deep linking be damned right? Now we have to mess with the canonical url to include the deep linked resources so that sharing works and a page that could have been static need dinamic generation of their meta
- akras14 9y ago
  It's not, it's redirecting to the AMP version, even if non AMP link was shared. See: https://www.alexkras.com/i-decided-to-disable-amp-on-my-site/ https://www.alexkras.com/i-decided-to-disable-amp-on-my-site...
toephu2 9y ago
OP does not explain WHY he wants AMP to be optional. In the other article the author says "I don’t know why I do it, but for some reason it just doesn’t feel “right” to me to consume the content through the AMP. It feels slightly off, and I want the real deal even if it takes a few seconds extra to load." That is a weak argument to persuade a major corporation to change the way something behaves or give the option to change the way something behaves. OP should put himself in the shoes of Twitter: "What do I get by making AMP optional?" ...now you know what their response will be. Edit: fair rebuttal, thanks for the response
- emn13 9y ago
  Well, why AMP, and not plain HTML? It's pretty clear at this point that AMP isn't any faster than simple HTML, and some of the limitations are clearly shift control (and advantage) to platforms like google, away from the hosting site. I mean; stripped down pages are way overdue, but it's mixed in with some unnecessary powergrabbing and arbitrary restrictions. And it's not like it's hard to strip down pages.
- akras14 9y ago
  It's a valid criticism of my earlier post, I did have a follow up where I tried to do a better job explaining why: https://www.alexkras.com/i-decided-to-disable-amp-on-my-site/ https://www.alexkras.com/i-decided-to-disable-amp-on-my-site... Also check out: https://www.alexkras.com/some-thoughts-on-amp-in-conde-nast/ https://www.alexkras.com/some-thoughts-on-amp-in-conde-nast/ For why I think it is bad for the publishers.
WillPostForFood 9y ago
Put this on the list of dozens of settings Twitter should be offering users, like opting out of seeing likes from people you follow, or permanently turning off "in case you missed it".
- akras14 9y ago
  Yeah, it's a long shot. Yet they took the time to get the AMP in.
gregable 9y ago
The website owner has added markup to a document that states: "Hey useragent, if you understand this markup, please send mobile users to this other URL that I have provided." Twitter then respects the website owner's markup request. If the markup was "here's a mobile optimized page", we wouldn't get this kind of strong reaction in HN. If the markup was "here's a the language X variant of the document", we wouldn't get this kind of reaction in HN.
- akras14 9y ago
  May be you are right, I'll have to meditate on that one. Edit: It's a complicated situation. Google offers a great carrot/stick to get people to adopt AMP. Publishers adopt it. Other platforms start using it. A lot of users like this format. Some users hate it and the idea of it. As I've mentioned before, I do think that Twitter was trying to do the right thing for their users given the situation we are in. It would be nice to have "request Desktop version" option for AMP, but not sure if it's too much to ask.
  - gregable 9y ago
    If the publisher provides both AMP and non-AMP versions of a document, it is possible to write a browser extension that will redirect to the non-AMP URL when provided. You would want to look for <html amp> to detect this case, and then <link rel=canonical> to determine the possible non-AMP URL. If that URL differs from the current URL, redirect to it. If you personally want a per-user option here to override the publisher, this seems like the way to go, but there is some similarity to ad-blocking here.
    - akras14 9y ago
      Yes, except it's not so easy to do in Safari on iOS.
- wtallis 9y ago
  > Twitter then respects the website owner's markup request. Since when is Twitter the user agent?
throw2016 9y ago
AMP is such an egregious attack on open standards it shouldn't be possible. The fact that it is shows the system is broken. The whole point of having a system is to prevent short term interests from trumping long term health. Tomorrow any monopolist can offer a short term fix for a fraction with the public lapping it up only to run down competitors and capture the market. This is well known monopolist behavior with strong systemic safeguards which curiously are not working. People keep on complaining about heavy web pages but what happened to faith in markets and letting users decide? Surely if a website is too heavy people will automatically seek alternatives. So there is a contradiction here, does the market work or does it encourage a race to the bottom? Perhaps without Google's monopolist intervention a more open less self interested solution could have emerged. Google is becoming a monster with an obsessive insatiable appetite for information and knowledge. A push back is long overdue or we will pay with private self serving entities controlling access to our own information and knowledge.

95 points by akras14 9y ago

I make a somewhat popular Chrome extension [1] designed to aid website readability. I think this article is spot-on, and I'm going to look into adding a feature to my Chrome extension that does precisely this article suggests (changes "amp=1" to "amp=0" on twitter links). Ping me if you want to try this feature in beta: nick@beelinereader.com. 1: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/beeline-reader/ifjafammaookpiajfbedmacfldaiamgg?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/beeline-reader/ifj...

endorphone 9y ago

I feel like this constant anti-AMP rhetoric has extraordinarily little to do with users, and primarily are web developers who don't like that AMP rolls back a lot of abuses. The argument isn't just "I don't like AMP", it's "No one should like AMP!" and it grows tiresome.

chickenfries 9y ago
> At the same time I understand that a lot of users DO like AMP content. I completely respect their right to enjoy it. But it would be nice if Twitter provided an option to opt-out from that experience for those who don’t. - TFA
- endorphone 9y ago
  Right. This person is saying "The last time I bitched on AMP it got hyped, so here it is again". I'm not talking about the author. I'm talking about the crowds on here that vigorously vote up everything anti-AMP.
  - chickenfries 9y ago
    You're arguing against an imaginary group of mindless AMP haters instead of the actual group of people very concerned with the far reaching implications of AMP on the open web. If it's not your concern, move on.
    - endorphone 9y ago
      No, I'm against the actual group on here, having seen this argument play out multiple times. I am not concerned about the implications of AMP, have a long history with the web, and think it is an arguably correct reaction to help protect the "open web". It is impossible to have a rational discussion on here, however, as so many are so viciously anti-AMP.
  - akras14 9y ago
    I bitch about AMP every time it finds an annoying way into my life. I have been bitching about it a lot less, since I disabled it on my site. It was actually a pro AMP article that was posted here and my response to it that "triggered" me to bitch again. https://www.alexkras.com/some-thoughts-on-amp-in-conde-nast/ https://www.alexkras.com/some-thoughts-on-amp-in-conde-nast/
    - endorphone 9y ago
      It plays to the crowd. I get it, and I'd do the same. Your original argument was that you purposefully enabled and published AMP on your site and then complained that Google `stole' your content, which normally would elicit groans and criticism on a technology site, but it played to the crowd. I'd keep playing that tune as long as people will listen.
      - akras14 9y ago
        Don't worry, I got my fair share of criticism. I had no clue what AMP was when I first enabled it, all I heard was that it might help my site rank better and I was sold. I should have RTFM and never enabled it, but it's not how it played out.
        jeremy7600 9y ago
        So, your problems were of your own making. Got it.
        akras14 9y ago
        Yes, and I am very explicit about it from the beginning. Mainly to make sure others don't make the same mistakes.
  - om2 9y ago
    Instead of arguing against the actual positions claimed, you're arguing against what you imagine are people's motivations.
fatjokes 9y ago
+1. As a user, I love AMP and don't understand the fuss.
- akras14 9y ago
  How would you feel if Twitter turned off the support for format that you liked, AMP in your case, even though that format was readily available, and instead forced you to use some other format you don't like? Regular web pages is the format that I personally prefer to interact with.
  - fatjokes 9y ago
    Does the format I like tend to be (even if not all) full of weird table layouts and spammy ads?
    - akras14 9y ago
      Most sites that end up peacking my interest are credible sites with regular ads. I only see benefits of AMP when I end up on crappy gossip type sites etc.
- mikeash 9y ago
  I dislike it because it breaks scrolling, sometimes breaks completely (Reddit pages never load under AMP for me, so there's always an extra tap needed, for example), and provides essentially no benefit. Yes, they load faster, you can make pages load quickly without it.
  - comex 9y ago
    Heh, I’d have thought you of all people would be on iOS 11 beta by now, where scrolling speed is now consistent between normal pages and scrollable iframes (which is what AMP uses). Or are you referring to a different scrolling problem?
    - mikeash 9y ago
akras14 9y ago
You are right, it has more to do with it not being inline with the ideas of the open web, and not liking the prospects of where this can take us.
- endorphone 9y ago
  An open standard, used by multiple parties (e.g. many services now consume AMP content), based upon HTML, consumable by just about everyone. That's about as open web as it gets. Secondly, I think the biggest strawman is this notion that it's AMP vs some conceptual "open web". That open web you like has much more formidable competitors and was the reason AMP appeared.
  - k__ 9y ago
    Hosted on google servers?
    - endorphone 9y ago
      Scripts pulled from cdn.ampproject.org. Should they be long cached on the browser? Should the browser hot replace references? Etc etc etc. There are a lot of interesting, beneficial discussions that can and should take place about this notion of a "lite" web, but instead it all gets short circuited with a losing defiance. The most tiresome is the recurring proclamation that it isn't really faster because you could technically abide by the same limitations, which completely misses the point.
      - matthewmacleod 9y ago
        There are a million amazing discussions that could be had, but there’s little point in starting that when the existing implementation is so rotten.
    - s17n 9y ago
      The cache architecture is open, so that anybody (eg, Twitter) can run their own AMP cache.
tdeck 9y ago
My biggest problem with AMP, as a user with low vision, is that it's impossible to zoom in on images in AMP pages. I have of course checked the box in Chrome (Brave) to force enable zoom, but somehow AMP overrides that because AMP knows best that a detailed infographic or photo of a document should be no wider than my phone's display.
- cramforce 9y ago
  AMP does not do anything in this direction, and certainly not on purpose. If it does please file a bug. We'll treat it as high priority. Note, that at the beginning of the developer preview 2 years ago, AMP did do something like this, but it was quickly fixed.
matthewmacleod 9y ago
No, that’s never the argument I’ve seen. It’s always been fairly well accepted that fast pages are good and AMP helps to make pages fast. The common argument - one which I unreservedly agree with - is that pages could be made fast without the use of AMP and especially the web-breaking nature of Google’s implementation. The fact that users like AMP is not material - the problems that it causes are not ones they are going to see in the short term.
- endorphone 9y ago
  But the common argument is nonsensical. Yes of course sites could make non-abusive, readable content. But they don't. The non-stickiness of the web, coupled with a low attention span of users, has yielded a sort of tragedy of the commons. AMP is a standard to say "this can't do that". We should have an HTMLite of the sort like AMP. Like how Google Gears became a variety of accepted web standards, it should build into something rather than the nonsensical claim that it does nothing.
  - matthewmacleod 9y ago
    That’s fine. I agree; “HTML-lite” is fine, and most of AMP is even an acceptable implementation of that concept. But in practice, the way AMP is used has fundamental problems. Like the fact that content is hosted by a third party, or that links are broken, or that scrolling is wrecked. I like the speed of AMP; the implementation is catastrophic and I wish dearly that I could disable its appearance in Google search results.
    - akras14 9y ago
      +1 would love to see HTML light, and that's why I initially assumed AMP to be. Edit: Now that I think about it, Twitter does try to use AMP as HTML light, since they don't use the cache. Yet I think AMP is does not make a great HTML light, likely because it has to support the cache use case.
    - hdhzy 9y ago
      > ... I wish dearly that I could disable its appearance in Google search results. You can if you use https://encrypted.google.com https://encrypted.google.com
LoSboccacc 9y ago
Considrng AMP fucks with sharing links, deep linking etc it's a huge step back to wap era. It rolls back a decade of responsive innovation.
tyingq 9y ago
Enjoy your trojan horse. I agree it is pretty. Edit: If you can't see the progression, look up this history of froogle. For starters, publishers are accepting a banner that takes up the most valuable space and features an [X] button that goes straight to Google. Worse if your page is in the carousel. And, it gets worse from here. They will tweak the UI over time...it's not your site. It's theirs. Eventually, this turns into an AOLesque private interweb.

ridiculous_fish 9y ago

Twitter for iOS has an option to open all links in reader mode. It's awesome! https://medium.com/@pixeldetective/open-twitter-links-directly-in-safaris-reader-mode-on-ios-58cc4eeaa14e https://medium.com/@pixeldetective/open-twitter-links-direct...

berns 9y ago

If Twitter is redirecting to the original URL, what's the problem? It muddies the claim of those that oppose AMP so fervently to mix AMP the framework with the use that Google makes of AMP. The publisher has decided to use this technology to make their mobile page. It's perfectly valid (and well engineered) HTML and javascript. Asking for a non AMP version of a page is like asking for the non React page or the non Bootstrap page.

sp332 9y ago
Google recommends that the "canonical" link always be the one that gets shared. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15086192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15086192 Implementations have been ignoring this, but it does seem more predictable, and also less likely to break if a publisher removes AMP later.
- LoSboccacc 9y ago
  And deep linking be damned right? Now we have to mess with the canonical url to include the deep linked resources so that sharing works and a page that could have been static need dinamic generation of their meta
akras14 9y ago
It's not, it's redirecting to the AMP version, even if non AMP link was shared. See: https://www.alexkras.com/i-decided-to-disable-amp-on-my-site/ https://www.alexkras.com/i-decided-to-disable-amp-on-my-site...

toephu2 9y ago

OP does not explain WHY he wants AMP to be optional. In the other article the author says "I don’t know why I do it, but for some reason it just doesn’t feel “right” to me to consume the content through the AMP. It feels slightly off, and I want the real deal even if it takes a few seconds extra to load." That is a weak argument to persuade a major corporation to change the way something behaves or give the option to change the way something behaves. OP should put himself in the shoes of Twitter: "What do I get by making AMP optional?" ...now you know what their response will be. Edit: fair rebuttal, thanks for the response

emn13 9y ago
Well, why AMP, and not plain HTML? It's pretty clear at this point that AMP isn't any faster than simple HTML, and some of the limitations are clearly shift control (and advantage) to platforms like google, away from the hosting site. I mean; stripped down pages are way overdue, but it's mixed in with some unnecessary powergrabbing and arbitrary restrictions. And it's not like it's hard to strip down pages.
akras14 9y ago
It's a valid criticism of my earlier post, I did have a follow up where I tried to do a better job explaining why: https://www.alexkras.com/i-decided-to-disable-amp-on-my-site/ https://www.alexkras.com/i-decided-to-disable-amp-on-my-site... Also check out: https://www.alexkras.com/some-thoughts-on-amp-in-conde-nast/ https://www.alexkras.com/some-thoughts-on-amp-in-conde-nast/ For why I think it is bad for the publishers.

WillPostForFood 9y ago

Put this on the list of dozens of settings Twitter should be offering users, like opting out of seeing likes from people you follow, or permanently turning off "in case you missed it".

akras14 9y ago
Yeah, it's a long shot. Yet they took the time to get the AMP in.

gregable 9y ago

The website owner has added markup to a document that states: "Hey useragent, if you understand this markup, please send mobile users to this other URL that I have provided." Twitter then respects the website owner's markup request. If the markup was "here's a mobile optimized page", we wouldn't get this kind of strong reaction in HN. If the markup was "here's a the language X variant of the document", we wouldn't get this kind of reaction in HN.

akras14 9y ago
May be you are right, I'll have to meditate on that one. Edit: It's a complicated situation. Google offers a great carrot/stick to get people to adopt AMP. Publishers adopt it. Other platforms start using it. A lot of users like this format. Some users hate it and the idea of it. As I've mentioned before, I do think that Twitter was trying to do the right thing for their users given the situation we are in. It would be nice to have "request Desktop version" option for AMP, but not sure if it's too much to ask.
- gregable 9y ago
  If the publisher provides both AMP and non-AMP versions of a document, it is possible to write a browser extension that will redirect to the non-AMP URL when provided. You would want to look for <html amp> to detect this case, and then <link rel=canonical> to determine the possible non-AMP URL. If that URL differs from the current URL, redirect to it. If you personally want a per-user option here to override the publisher, this seems like the way to go, but there is some similarity to ad-blocking here.
  - akras14 9y ago
    Yes, except it's not so easy to do in Safari on iOS.
wtallis 9y ago
> Twitter then respects the website owner's markup request. Since when is Twitter the user agent?

throw2016 9y ago

AMP is such an egregious attack on open standards it shouldn't be possible. The fact that it is shows the system is broken. The whole point of having a system is to prevent short term interests from trumping long term health. Tomorrow any monopolist can offer a short term fix for a fraction with the public lapping it up only to run down competitors and capture the market. This is well known monopolist behavior with strong systemic safeguards which curiously are not working. People keep on complaining about heavy web pages but what happened to faith in markets and letting users decide? Surely if a website is too heavy people will automatically seek alternatives. So there is a contradiction here, does the market work or does it encourage a race to the bottom? Perhaps without Google's monopolist intervention a more open less self interested solution could have emerged. Google is becoming a monster with an obsessive insatiable appetite for information and knowledge. A push back is long overdue or we will pay with private self serving entities controlling access to our own information and knowledge.