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I've asked the AMP team exactly this and they punted and demurred on the subject and said they have some vague plans to some day make it also contain sites that

I've asked the AMP team exactly this and they punted and demurred on the subject and said they have some vague plans to some day make it also contain sites that are as fast as AMP. The AMP team will tell you that they are concerned with making the web faster, and it's the _search_ team that controls the carousel. Which is all well and good, but I can tell you that the _only_ reason any publisher is doing AMP is because they want the placement in the carousel and better search results. As far as I can tell, google has no intention of ever allowing non-amp content they can't re-serve from their cache and add whatever analytics and tracking they want to from being ranked highly. AMP is a tactic to let them track the most lucrative mobile web users and take control away from publishers of original content.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
devoply 8y ago
There should be a law!
- vinceguidry 8y ago
  There should be, but there won't be, at least not anytime soon. This is still the wild west. Google is the corrupt sheriff whose task is to keep the place relatively safe and productive and is politically clear to enrich himself by his position, as no one else is going to pay him and no one important cares. Give it another fifty years and the web will finish civilizing.
  - john-radio 8y ago
    > Give it another fifty years I see you have not been following the CO2 news.
  - jacobolus 8y ago
    Does “civilizing” mean “entirely taken over by feudal lords instead of just mostly”?
    - Moru 8y ago
      I chose to see that positively. In 50 years the Web has civilised into something that is not run by a big company and governed by sane rules.
    - geezerjay 8y ago
      The judiciary is quite literally the outcome of a feudal society (courts?), but that doesn't mean that civilized societies don't benefit from establishing rule of law. In fact, the absense of laws just means that some random individual can and will have power over you without you having any say on the matter.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
ehnto 8y ago
There is nothing about an AMP page that makes it inherently faster until it lands in and is served by a Google regional cache server. Otherwise my site is going to be just as fast. I can make just as fast web pages and serve them from a server sitting in the same state as my customers. There will be no need for Google level scale for my site as it is regional. Yet I still get put below AMP sites. From many different angles, AMP getting preferential treatment is heavy handed and clumsy, manipulative and forcing technology standards on the web that no one agreed on.
- underwater 8y ago
  AMP limits what the page can do, and allows Google to safely serve content through a cache. So Google can preload and prerender the page in an iframe. As a result clicks on the carousel are literally instant. That can't be done safely with a regular HTML page.
  - warent 8y ago
    I can't help but wonder what problem they're solving for. Is there a huge market of people clamoring to make webpages load faster than they already do?
    - yathern 8y ago
      Yes. In many areas where phones are the main tool used to access the internet, and coverage is primarily still 3G. Not defending AMP - but making pages load faster is still something people want and need.
      - C1sc0cat 8y ago
        For a lot of niches usage is > 50% mobile already.
    - Godel_unicode 8y ago
      Yes.
    - 8y ago
burtonator 8y ago
Web users and independent sites need more stories like this as it's impossible to understand these things from their perspective unless you have this kind of traffic.
codedokode 8y ago
Is looks like Google just needs AMP to be able to display other sites' pages on its site and mobile app. But I don't understand why they just don't take a "Reader mode" implementation from Firefox to produce text-only pages instead of making publishers develop a second version of their sites.
- gowld 8y ago
  Reader Mode (Simplified View in Android Chrome) drops ads, which publishers would not appreciate.
manigandham 8y ago
With the coming ITP changes in Mobile Safari, it also helps Google maintain 1st-party cookies by never leaving their domains.
- millstone 8y ago
  Also often defeats Safari Reader Mode, though I guess there will be a bit of an arms race here.
  - lern_too_spel 8y ago
    Safari Reader mode is too stupid to use the canonical URL. That's Apple's problem.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

devoply 8y ago

There should be a law!

vinceguidry 8y ago
There should be, but there won't be, at least not anytime soon. This is still the wild west. Google is the corrupt sheriff whose task is to keep the place relatively safe and productive and is politically clear to enrich himself by his position, as no one else is going to pay him and no one important cares. Give it another fifty years and the web will finish civilizing.
- john-radio 8y ago
  > Give it another fifty years I see you have not been following the CO2 news.
- jacobolus 8y ago
  Does “civilizing” mean “entirely taken over by feudal lords instead of just mostly”?
  - Moru 8y ago
    I chose to see that positively. In 50 years the Web has civilised into something that is not run by a big company and governed by sane rules.
  - geezerjay 8y ago
    The judiciary is quite literally the outcome of a feudal society (courts?), but that doesn't mean that civilized societies don't benefit from establishing rule of law. In fact, the absense of laws just means that some random individual can and will have power over you without you having any say on the matter.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

ehnto 8y ago

There is nothing about an AMP page that makes it inherently faster until it lands in and is served by a Google regional cache server. Otherwise my site is going to be just as fast. I can make just as fast web pages and serve them from a server sitting in the same state as my customers. There will be no need for Google level scale for my site as it is regional. Yet I still get put below AMP sites. From many different angles, AMP getting preferential treatment is heavy handed and clumsy, manipulative and forcing technology standards on the web that no one agreed on.

underwater 8y ago
AMP limits what the page can do, and allows Google to safely serve content through a cache. So Google can preload and prerender the page in an iframe. As a result clicks on the carousel are literally instant. That can't be done safely with a regular HTML page.
- warent 8y ago
  I can't help but wonder what problem they're solving for. Is there a huge market of people clamoring to make webpages load faster than they already do?
  - yathern 8y ago
    Yes. In many areas where phones are the main tool used to access the internet, and coverage is primarily still 3G. Not defending AMP - but making pages load faster is still something people want and need.
    - C1sc0cat 8y ago
      For a lot of niches usage is > 50% mobile already.
  - Godel_unicode 8y ago
    Yes.
  - 8y ago

burtonator 8y ago

Web users and independent sites need more stories like this as it's impossible to understand these things from their perspective unless you have this kind of traffic.

codedokode 8y ago

Is looks like Google just needs AMP to be able to display other sites' pages on its site and mobile app. But I don't understand why they just don't take a "Reader mode" implementation from Firefox to produce text-only pages instead of making publishers develop a second version of their sites.

gowld 8y ago
Reader Mode (Simplified View in Android Chrome) drops ads, which publishers would not appreciate.

manigandham 8y ago

With the coming ITP changes in Mobile Safari, it also helps Google maintain 1st-party cookies by never leaving their domains.

millstone 8y ago
Also often defeats Safari Reader Mode, though I guess there will be a bit of an arms race here.
- lern_too_spel 8y ago
  Safari Reader mode is too stupid to use the canonical URL. That's Apple's problem.