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Is there a coordinated campaign going on against AMP? My experience as a user has been nothing but positive, with pages loading in a small fraction of the time

Is there a coordinated campaign going on against AMP? My experience as a user has been nothing but positive, with pages loading in a small fraction of the time of normal pages, while I read nothing but negativity about AMP in developer communities like this one. Am I missing something fundamentally evil about AMP that's not apparent from the user standpoint? From my limited perspective, it seems to be the only force trying to counteract an increasingly bloated and slow web.

scarface74 8y ago
AMP Pages at time leaves off crucial content to a story - I've seen it a lot with articles containing embedded tweets. I'd rather not deal with AMP and just go with the real page + an ad blocker. Fortunately, in iOS, the ad blockers also work in certain types of embedded web views (SafariViewController) that my RSS Reader uses.
- joegahona 8y ago
  That's the publisher not doing things in the AMP-specified way. On massive content sites it's a pain in the rear to maintain both a normal version and an AMP version (and an FBIA version, and an Apple News version), so things like tweet embeds get left out.
CaptSpify 8y ago
There's no coordinated campaign that I know of. The negative reaction that I personally have to AMP is that Google started pushing it as the solution to a problem that they helped create. It's just an attempt to lock publishers into Google's ecosystem. If Google really cared about fixing the root of the problem, they would put the AMP icon next to sites that are already small and already load fast, and rank them higher, rather than creating a new platform.
- Zelphyr 8y ago
  YES! In true American form, we're solving a ten dollar problem with a million dollar solution.
- deminature 8y ago
  I'm not sure I follow how Google helped create a trend of increasingly bloated sites that don't load quickly? The only sites I see loading remotely as quickly as AMP sites are AMP sites. Nothing comes close, nor is it apparent online publishers are even trying to optimize their pages to load quickly. AMP strikes me as a project of desperation by Google, as publishers seem intent to kill their own sites by loading them with as many XML HTTP requests and trackers as possible.
  - CaptSpify 8y ago
    Google has been encouraging those sites to run all that extra cruft by: A) Not de-ranking sites that are large and slow B) Asking them to run a bunch of unnecessary trackers (Google Analytics) I've never used AMP, but it does sound like it is fast, and web-page bloat is indeed a problem. But adding another layer (which also just happens to make you more beholden to Google) isn't the right way to fix that problem, removing the bloated layers is.
    - fastball 8y ago
      A) That's not Google encouraging, that's Google not discouraging. There is actually a difference. B) GA is super lightweight compared to almost every other thing people put on their sites. I mean, it's the equivalent of one tiny image.
      - CaptSpify 8y ago
        A) OK, but the end result is the same. B) And? It doesn't matter how lightweight it is. It's still unnecessary.
        fastball 8y ago
        If I encourage you to murder someone, and you do it, I'm party to murder. If I don't care about you either way and you murder someone, I'm not party to murder. The result is the same (you murdered somebody), but it very much matters if and how I was involved. Who are you to decide if GA is unnecessary?
diminoten 8y ago
It's honestly blowing my mind how universal and non-substantive the complaints here actually are. The actual article is a legitimate issue and should be looked into (and sounds like it is), but the vitriol for AMP voiced here is crazy, considering what it does (very little).
smichel17 8y ago
I use DuckDuckGo, so I haven't actually seen an amp page in my own personal browsing. However, I have seen an uptick in people sending me https://google.com/amp/<content> https://google.com/amp/<content>. I avoid GOOG when possible, so I have to copy out <content> manually, which is (minorly) annoying. Thus, AMP leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Then, of course, there's a variety of ideological arguments against it, but those have all been discussed ad nauseam, so I'll leave them out of this post.

scarface74 8y ago

AMP Pages at time leaves off crucial content to a story - I've seen it a lot with articles containing embedded tweets. I'd rather not deal with AMP and just go with the real page + an ad blocker. Fortunately, in iOS, the ad blockers also work in certain types of embedded web views (SafariViewController) that my RSS Reader uses.

joegahona 8y ago
That's the publisher not doing things in the AMP-specified way. On massive content sites it's a pain in the rear to maintain both a normal version and an AMP version (and an FBIA version, and an Apple News version), so things like tweet embeds get left out.

CaptSpify 8y ago

There's no coordinated campaign that I know of. The negative reaction that I personally have to AMP is that Google started pushing it as the solution to a problem that they helped create. It's just an attempt to lock publishers into Google's ecosystem. If Google really cared about fixing the root of the problem, they would put the AMP icon next to sites that are already small and already load fast, and rank them higher, rather than creating a new platform.

Zelphyr 8y ago
YES! In true American form, we're solving a ten dollar problem with a million dollar solution.
deminature 8y ago
I'm not sure I follow how Google helped create a trend of increasingly bloated sites that don't load quickly? The only sites I see loading remotely as quickly as AMP sites are AMP sites. Nothing comes close, nor is it apparent online publishers are even trying to optimize their pages to load quickly. AMP strikes me as a project of desperation by Google, as publishers seem intent to kill their own sites by loading them with as many XML HTTP requests and trackers as possible.
- CaptSpify 8y ago
  Google has been encouraging those sites to run all that extra cruft by: A) Not de-ranking sites that are large and slow B) Asking them to run a bunch of unnecessary trackers (Google Analytics) I've never used AMP, but it does sound like it is fast, and web-page bloat is indeed a problem. But adding another layer (which also just happens to make you more beholden to Google) isn't the right way to fix that problem, removing the bloated layers is.
  - fastball 8y ago
    A) That's not Google encouraging, that's Google not discouraging. There is actually a difference. B) GA is super lightweight compared to almost every other thing people put on their sites. I mean, it's the equivalent of one tiny image.
    - CaptSpify 8y ago
      A) OK, but the end result is the same. B) And? It doesn't matter how lightweight it is. It's still unnecessary.
      - fastball 8y ago
        If I encourage you to murder someone, and you do it, I'm party to murder. If I don't care about you either way and you murder someone, I'm not party to murder. The result is the same (you murdered somebody), but it very much matters if and how I was involved. Who are you to decide if GA is unnecessary?

diminoten 8y ago

It's honestly blowing my mind how universal and non-substantive the complaints here actually are. The actual article is a legitimate issue and should be looked into (and sounds like it is), but the vitriol for AMP voiced here is crazy, considering what it does (very little).

smichel17 8y ago

I use DuckDuckGo, so I haven't actually seen an amp page in my own personal browsing. However, I have seen an uptick in people sending me https://google.com/amp/<content> https://google.com/amp/<content>. I avoid GOOG when possible, so I have to copy out <content> manually, which is (minorly) annoying. Thus, AMP leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Then, of course, there's a variety of ideological arguments against it, but those have all been discussed ad nauseam, so I'll leave them out of this post.