4 ms·

The complaints of web users still have power for now. Slow, tracker-laden web pages are still terrible, AMP was just the wrong solution.

mthoms 5y ago
I don't think that users complaints actually had any impact. It seems more likely that avoiding regulatory scrutiny was G's motivation in scrapping AMP.
- pwinnski 5y ago
  Why not both? There are companies pushing the boundaries every day, with governments generally failing to even investigate unless there are enough complaints to raise attention. Complaints by themselves depend only on shame, which most companies seem to avoid easily. Complaints that catch the attention of governments, on the other hand...
- Angostura 5y ago
  Perhaps, or they were seeing an uptick in DDG usage on mobile.
- pydry 5y ago
  User complaints do drive regulatory scrutiny, and Google will point to a lack of user complaints to try to justify its behavior.
ridaj 5y ago
It was the wrong long-term solution for sure. But I think it forced publishers to reevaluate their priorities with respect to bloat and loading times, whereas prior attempts at quietly calling attention to the problem apparently didn't make a shred of difference...
- criddell 5y ago
  AMP pages no longer get preferential treatment explicitly, but I'm guessing time-to-load is still a signal that is used by the algorithm. I wonder if they have hard guidelines? Something like "your page should load and render in 1000 ms" on a broadband connection.
  - hyperdimension 5y ago
    1000 ms for application/html. How far we have come...
    - zentiggr 5y ago
      When I remember getting BBS results faster... sigh. while (true) { Every available channel will fill with every available amount of content until the SNR gets so low that a different channel is created. }
kemonocode 5y ago
I agree, and whenever I bring up that web designers can do anything but wrong, I've been piled up on before. I'd still take a mildly broken AMP page to read an article over the "intended experience" with ads and trackers everywhere and any attempts to block them would break the page further.
- josefx 5y ago
  > and any attempts to block them would break the page further. The fun part about ads and trackers is that they do not contribute anything functional to a page, so blocking them generally does not break anything.
- whoknowswhat11 5y ago
  Agreed - all the claims that AMP sites are slower / more bloated then non-AMP sites seemed like total nonsense to me. Maybe HN folks with blocking capabilities - but average folks like my mom, AMP was the place to be.
MaxBarraclough 5y ago
As far as I can tell, Google have the power to essentially end web bloat at one stroke: introduce severe Google ranking penalties for bloated pages. Websites would soon get the message and cut down on bloat. Presumably the reason Google doesn't do this is that they'd have to punish many of the most popular websites, which might be seen as damaging the quality of their search results (at least in the short term).
- pwinnski 5y ago
  Some of the bloat is very specifically Google's own ad and tracking code, so they are very much working at cross-purposes within Google.
  - sellyme 5y ago
    Google's ad/tracking code is generally measured in the tens of kilobytes. Compare that to e.g., the tens of megabytes that news sites routinely waste autoplaying videos on completely different stories to the one you clicked on. Google clearly already knows whether a website is primarily a text-based site or a video-based site, as it displays the two differently in search results. If they immediately blacklisted any text-based site with autoplay video from ever appearing on the first page of search results it would cut about 50% of web bloat overnight. Yeah they have competing interests when it comes to truly minimising unnecessary resource usage, but there's so much good that they could do without going anywhere near cutting into their own analytics.
- claudiulodro 5y ago
  > introduce severe Google ranking penalties for bloated pages That's literally what they're doing with the AMP requirement change, no? Instead of giving priority to AMP pages, they're giving priority to any pages which have good performance.
  - MaxBarraclough 5y ago
    I'm not sure. The article does say: > If you want higher rankings and more traffic from search engines, you need to optimize your site for a better, more performant and faster user experience. But wasn't this how things were meant to work before AMP? Google search never had harsh enough penalties to seriously deter bloat, and I don't know that they're going to change that, they're just going to remove the preferential treatment for AMP.
Fordec 5y ago
I get the sense that the only reason this happened is because amp sites were returning less advertising revenue for sites implementing it vs regular web. If the money was the same or better then I can't assume it would have ended up this way.

mthoms 5y ago

I don't think that users complaints actually had any impact. It seems more likely that avoiding regulatory scrutiny was G's motivation in scrapping AMP.

pwinnski 5y ago
Why not both? There are companies pushing the boundaries every day, with governments generally failing to even investigate unless there are enough complaints to raise attention. Complaints by themselves depend only on shame, which most companies seem to avoid easily. Complaints that catch the attention of governments, on the other hand...
Angostura 5y ago
Perhaps, or they were seeing an uptick in DDG usage on mobile.
pydry 5y ago
User complaints do drive regulatory scrutiny, and Google will point to a lack of user complaints to try to justify its behavior.

ridaj 5y ago

It was the wrong long-term solution for sure. But I think it forced publishers to reevaluate their priorities with respect to bloat and loading times, whereas prior attempts at quietly calling attention to the problem apparently didn't make a shred of difference...

criddell 5y ago
AMP pages no longer get preferential treatment explicitly, but I'm guessing time-to-load is still a signal that is used by the algorithm. I wonder if they have hard guidelines? Something like "your page should load and render in 1000 ms" on a broadband connection.
- hyperdimension 5y ago
  1000 ms for application/html. How far we have come...
  - zentiggr 5y ago
    When I remember getting BBS results faster... sigh. while (true) { Every available channel will fill with every available amount of content until the SNR gets so low that a different channel is created. }

kemonocode 5y ago

I agree, and whenever I bring up that web designers can do anything but wrong, I've been piled up on before. I'd still take a mildly broken AMP page to read an article over the "intended experience" with ads and trackers everywhere and any attempts to block them would break the page further.

josefx 5y ago
> and any attempts to block them would break the page further. The fun part about ads and trackers is that they do not contribute anything functional to a page, so blocking them generally does not break anything.
whoknowswhat11 5y ago
Agreed - all the claims that AMP sites are slower / more bloated then non-AMP sites seemed like total nonsense to me. Maybe HN folks with blocking capabilities - but average folks like my mom, AMP was the place to be.

MaxBarraclough 5y ago

As far as I can tell, Google have the power to essentially end web bloat at one stroke: introduce severe Google ranking penalties for bloated pages. Websites would soon get the message and cut down on bloat. Presumably the reason Google doesn't do this is that they'd have to punish many of the most popular websites, which might be seen as damaging the quality of their search results (at least in the short term).

pwinnski 5y ago
Some of the bloat is very specifically Google's own ad and tracking code, so they are very much working at cross-purposes within Google.
- sellyme 5y ago
  Google's ad/tracking code is generally measured in the tens of kilobytes. Compare that to e.g., the tens of megabytes that news sites routinely waste autoplaying videos on completely different stories to the one you clicked on. Google clearly already knows whether a website is primarily a text-based site or a video-based site, as it displays the two differently in search results. If they immediately blacklisted any text-based site with autoplay video from ever appearing on the first page of search results it would cut about 50% of web bloat overnight. Yeah they have competing interests when it comes to truly minimising unnecessary resource usage, but there's so much good that they could do without going anywhere near cutting into their own analytics.
claudiulodro 5y ago
> introduce severe Google ranking penalties for bloated pages That's literally what they're doing with the AMP requirement change, no? Instead of giving priority to AMP pages, they're giving priority to any pages which have good performance.
- MaxBarraclough 5y ago
  I'm not sure. The article does say: > If you want higher rankings and more traffic from search engines, you need to optimize your site for a better, more performant and faster user experience. But wasn't this how things were meant to work before AMP? Google search never had harsh enough penalties to seriously deter bloat, and I don't know that they're going to change that, they're just going to remove the preferential treatment for AMP.

Fordec 5y ago

I get the sense that the only reason this happened is because amp sites were returning less advertising revenue for sites implementing it vs regular web. If the money was the same or better then I can't assume it would have ended up this way.