AMP is a competitor of instant articles rather than the 'cure'.
If google really cared that much about speed they would just punish slow sites. I see amp as a land grab in cute packaging.
Yes, I mean, AMP isn't the solution I might build independently. But, it is built on standard, open web platform features. You can render an AMP article from any source in a manner of your choosing, using the features available in a web browser.
> If google really cared that much about speed they would just punish slow sites.
They have started doing this as well, I believe, by rewarding sites that are optimized for mobile devices.
> I see amp as a land grab in cute packaging.
There is a land grab taking place, whether AMP exists or not. The territory at stake is the growing mindshare of users who browse published content (sometimes exclusively) on mobile devices. I would personally love to see a more open movement than AMP or Facebook Instant Articles participating, but I would take AMP over Instant Articles without much consideration.
- url highjacking isn't standard, or open, or a feature.
- forcing javascript to load from a specific domain is not standard either.
Google should just stop pretending that AMP is any different than fb instant articles. Yeah it gives you more syntactical freedom and you can run some scripts in iframes, the lock in factor is the same.
Not sure why it matters that the scripts are hosted by Google, you can easily add hashes to external scripts to guarantee they haven't been altered.
Yes it's more open than fb instant articles but both act to build a fence around open web
Worse is that users will start associating the amp icon with fast sites, forcing everyone to start using amp or suffer lower conversions even if their normal site is just as fast or faster. This is because google forces amp sites to be fast, but doesn't punish slow sites in their other search results. Suddenly this amp thing starts to look less innocent.
There is absolutely nothing stopping google from putting an icon next to fast sites that don't use amp. They used slow sites as an artificial crisis to market a fence they're building around the open web.
Pretty dark for the "don't be evil" google. Facebook isn't doing anything better but at least their platform doesn't pollute search engine results