So why does El Reg (amongst many others) publish AMP-formatted pages? And why do so many people voluntarily view them?
It's not always voluntary.
If you hit a link on Twitter to (say) Ars Technica on a mobile device - you'll almost certainly go to the AMP page first, and then have to click a link to go to the properly formatted version.
Aside from AMP pages being unadulterated dogshit (IMO) one of the common complaints about it is that there's no way to opt-out of being served the AMP crap.
They've got more reach because of the way Google is pushing them - it doesn't automatically mean that AMP is a better solution. It's more than possible to create a page that'll load quickly on a mobile without AMP, and doesn't even take that much effort.
If you like AMP pages, that's fine. The difference is, that those of us who don't like them are getting them pushed with no way to say once (whether per-site, or globally) that we'd actually rather have the full-fat version of the site. IMO it's as, if not more, annoying than the sites that insist on loading a modal to say "We see you're on a mobile, why not install our app?" every time you visit.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
