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The Meaning of AMP (adactio.com)
Last week, Ethan Marcotte, an independent web designer, shared how Google describes AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages). People at Google says AMP "isn't a 'proprietary format'; it's an open standard that anyone can contribute to." But that definition, Marcotte argues, isn't necessarily an honest one. He writes: On the face of it, this statement's true. AMP's markup isn't proprietary as such: rather, all those odd-looking amp- tags are custom elements, part of the HTML standard. And the specification's published, edited, and distributed on GitHub, under one of the more permissive licenses available. So, yes. The HTML standard does allow for the creation of custom elements, it's true, and AMP's license is quite liberal. But spend a bit of time with the rules that outline AMP's governance. Significant features and changes require the approval of AMP's Technical Lead and one Core Committer -- and if you peruse the list of AMP's Core Committers, that list seems exclusively staffed and led by Google employees. Now, there's nothing wrong with this. After all, AMP is a Google-backed project, and they're free to establish any governance model they deem appropriate. But when I hear AMP described as an open, community-led project, it strikes me as incredibly problematic, and more than a little troubling. AMP is, I think, best described as nominally open-source. It's a corporate-led product initiative built with, and distributed on, open web technologies. Jeremy Keith, a web developer, further adds: If AMP were actually the product of working web developers, this justification would make sense. As it is, we've got one team at Google citing the preference of another team at Google but representing it as the will of the people. This is just one example of AMP's sneaky marketing where some finely-shaved semantics allows them to appear far more reasonable than they actually are. At AMP Conf, the Google Search team were at pains to repeat over and over that AMP pages wouldn't get any preferential treatment in search results ... but they appear in a carousel above the search results. Now, if you were to ask any right-thinking person whether they think having their page appear right at the top of a list of search results would be considered preferential treatment, I think they would say hell, yes! This is the only reason why The Guardian, for instance, even have AMP versions of their content -- it's not for the performance benefits (their non-AMP pages are faster); it's for that prime real estate in the carousel. The same semantic nit-picking can be found in their defence of caching. See, they've even got me calling it caching! It's hosting. If I click on a search result, and I am taken to page that has a URL beginning with https://www.google.com/amp/s/... then that page is being hosted on the domain google.com. That is literally what hosting means. Now, you might argue that the original version was hosted on a different domain, but the version that the user gets sent to is the Google copy. You can call it caching if you like, but you can't tell me that Google aren't hosting AMP pages. That's a particularly low blow, because it's such a bait'n'switch.
Can somebody please explain the TLA (Three Letter Abbreviation) when they post an article about it?
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
AMP is Accelerated Mobile Pages, an HTML dialect that's processed by JavaScript hosted by Google. Google claims that AMP is quicker for at least three reasons:
1. The AMP script is less heavy than some of the ad, responsive image, and video display scripts on popular sites.
2. Elements far above and far below the viewport are removed from the DOM. This makes it less likely that the browser will have to purge other tabs from RAM, nor the operating system other applications.
3. Documents are mirrored by the www.google.com host, to which the user already holds a TCP connection.
This is much easier to explain through a much more common practice by the same company: the Android "Open Source" Project.
Let's get this out of the way: Android isn't open source (outside of China at least, where Google is blocked). Period. No discussion. When you have a market so flooded by Android devices shipping with a closed source module, with super user powers, that responds to remote requests, it's not open source. That's Google Play Services for you.
AMP is just another tool for Google to keep a trendy brand on the dev community, while achieving secondary goals in the process, goals usually related to keeping or stretching their core business, which as we all know, is Big Data and Ads. They want to standardize indeed - standardize your usage patterns into their technologies.
But the true question is: is that so bad? We eventually have to place our trust in a paltform. Some already live with the apples, others with the windows, yet the gogles always get the bad rep. Maybe we shouldn't worry so much about this specific company. I mean, it is heavily scrutinized already by the competition.
I find that AMP breaks pages and I'd rather turn it off if I could find a way. I can't bookmark the pages, the links are wrong, and sometimes they don't render properly. If I can hack the URL and find the *real* page it usually works better. Google is using AMP as an excuse to take over pages from other sites so they can track people better. At this point, just turn on private browsing mode before using any Google page.
I usually agree with this comment-- I hate TLAs!!!!-- but in this case, the definition is on the first line of the summary.
This sounds like a dominance game to me. Pretend it's an 'open standard' to get it widely adopted, meanwhile you're the one driving the so-called 'open standard'; voila, you're the de-facto alpha.
It seems to me that Google is becoming more and more abusive.
When I go to web pages, often the NoScript and Ghostery add-ons list one or more Google processes. Google is following web site visitors everywhere.
Google allows cell phone providers to prevent updates to its Android operating system. That forces people who need security to buy new cell phones.
In general, it seems to me that hardware and software providers are becoming more and more authoritarian. They take advantage of the fact that most people don't know much about technology.
In my opinion, Microsoft's Windows 10 is NOT USABLE! How can you deliver a computer to a customer when you know what you are delivering is spyware? One article: Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. Quote from that story: "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC." A previous comment about Microsoft: Window 10 Spyware.
Technology companies are not only abusive in their design of products, they are abusive in other ways, also:
Microsoft: Microsoft Is Filled With Abusive Managers And Overworked Employees, Says Tell-All Book.
Apple: Cupertino Mayor Says Apple 'Abuses Us'
Apple again: Criticism of Apple Inc.
Adobe Systems: Adobe Flash, The Spy in Your Computer -- Part 1 Adobe seems to me to be one of the original abusers. The company demonstrated to others that average people don't know how to protect themselves from technology abuse.
Adobe Systems rents software: Software as a Monthly Rental
This is one of the problems with Linux these days, license proliferation. I've been using Gentoo for fifteen years and in /usr/portage/licenses there is a description of all 760 of them You can specify in /etc/make.conf which licenses you approve or disprove. It appears that instead of the GPL people are just making up their own and you have to wonder what their motivation is.
For instance the "Happy Bunny" license. Restrictions? "By making use of the Software for military purposes, you choose to make a Bunny unhappy." WTF?
i'm willing to entertain the claims of this article, but seriously, if "working web developers" had any more input on standards, we'd all need 16-core CPUs and 64GB of RAM just to use a web browser.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
It is important to move all urls to google.com, facebook.com, or amazon.com. Because soon, these will be the only 3 websites. GOOG and FB already account for 70% of internet traffic, with AMZN in much of the remainder. This is why all three corporations have mobile apps - so that you don't need that pesky browser that can access other sites. So much angst over DNS and ICANN - but soon DNS will be irrelevant. You'll need a Google or Facebook group. https://staltz.com/the-web-beg...
You completely missed the main point of the fine article - Google is going to considerable lengths to make web developers think AMP is open but in reality it is completely controlled by Google.
At least you managed to pick up on the fact that article contained the word Google. I guess that's a start.
AMP is free (in cost). In effect, though, they limit access to your brand and ads and the content almost appears to be sponsored by Google.
AMP is google dabbling in the microsoft originated corruption process known as Embrace and Extend. You take a standard and fully implement it, then add a few new features. You create huge incentives to use those features such as an IDE that doesn't distinguish between standard and non-standard HTML, and a browser that gets better performance when you use the new features. Pretty soon everyone inadvertently uses the features and all the other parts of the web break except for those using the google browser and google news feeds and google search. The competition and the general standard withers on the vine. You then keep introducing new features, and especially insidious ones, that gather information from users or are introduced ahead of their adequate documentation to stay one step ahead of other implementers. Finally you tie it to features only available on your system, such as the Microsoft OS, or to logged in google users.
2. profit.
there is no ??? step in embrace and extend.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
AMP is google dabbling in the microsoft originated corruption process known as Embrace and Extend.
Google is the new AOL & CompuServe. Through their powerful search engine and other services they have basically taken over the free web and own it by default. It *is* a sort of embrace and extend, albeit one that comes with quite some empowerment. And for 'free' as in "Brave New World meets 1984 with the brakes removed and you'll love it" sort of vibe.
While MSes old-school e (embrace extend extinguish) was a PITA, Google actually manages to make their version of it quite enticing. Google is the new online service that has long since replaced the open web with their version of it - ever since 14 years ago regular people started mistaking Google for the web and Googles search for the adress-bar. We see it with branded custom hardware built around their services poping up
It works. I'm typing this on a 130 Euro chromebook. QED. I couldn't have said this for microsoft back in the day. MS e always was considerably annoying. Google makes theirs feel better - at least with me that is.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca