My AMP critique from back in December
Originally posted at https://plus.google.com/+AlanPeery/posts/7E8cRhfx587, I hit on some different aspects of why AMP is a technology that should die.
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Speeding up the Web, what could be wrong with that?
Google has implemented something called AMP into the Google+ Android app, and on a post there I ended up writing a substantial critique of AMP.
AMP is a new Google technology I'm not fond of, because
1) It's breaking my reading and bookmarking workflow and
2) It centralizes more power with google and
3) It might hurt the originating website's viability and
4) For the same original URL, users in Google+ (and probably soon Gmail) get different URLs depending on what device they read on and
5) There's no easy way for me to opt out that I have found
In very quick summary, an "Accelerated Mobile Page" link points back to cached content is substituted for the direct link to a website if that website opts in. The page loads faster, but the link points back to Google rather than the original site (leading to complaint #1 as I can no longer track by site, etc), and Google knows I have followed it (#2) and the website doesn't get the traffic (complaint #3) though there may be a reporting mechanism I am not familiar with and they do have to opt in.
I'm only getting a grip with how AMP shows up now, and it changes depending on where you're reading content. When I first read the original post I was using my mobile phone, and the URL shown in the Google+ post was an AMP style URL -- so I edited the URL by hand into a normal URL by hand as I thought the original poster had posted an AMP URL. Looking at the original post in the a PC web browser I saw the normal URL. We suddenly have two URLs instead of one which makes confusion possible (#4).
The final bit is that I haven't been able to find a way to disable the AMP mechanism from affecting me personally, as Google+ doesn't make this an option(#5). This means my workflow is broken, as the URLs I add to Pocket for offline reading when I am using my phone don't reference the real website.
https://www.wired.com/2016/02/googles-amp-speeding-web-changing-works
https://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/introducing-accelerated-mobile-pages.html
The original URL, with some editing so you can see the URL fully:
http:// www.smh.com.au /world/us-election/trumps-tech-adviser-peter-thiel-backs-utopian-technology-less-sure-democracy-20161116-gsqrnu.html
The AMP'd URL that I see when using my Android phone:
https:// www.google.com /amp/s/amp.smh.com.au/world/us-election/trumps-tech-adviser-peter-thiel-backs-utopian-technology-less-sure-democracy-20161116-gsqrnu.html
Biting the hand that feeds IT
