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AMP For Email Is a Terrible Idea (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from a report via TechCrunch, written by Devin Coldewey: Google just announced a plan to "modernize" email with its Accelerated Mobile Pages platform, allowing "engaging, interactive, and actionable email experiences." Does that sound like a terrible idea to anyone else? It sure sounds like a terrible idea to me, and not only that, but an idea borne out of competitive pressure and existing leverage rather than user needs. Not good, Google. Send to trash. See, email belongs to a special class. Nobody really likes it, but it's the way nobody really likes sidewalks, or electrical outlets, or forks. It not that there's something wrong with them. It's that they're mature, useful items that do exactly what they need to do. They've transcended the world of likes and dislikes. Email too is simple. It's a known quantity in practically every company, household, and device. The implementation has changed over the decades, but the basic idea has remained the same since the very first email systems in the '60s and '70s, certainly since its widespread standardization in the '90s and shift to web platforms in the '00s. The parallels to snail mail are deliberate (it's a payload with an address on it) and simplicity has always been part of its design (interoperability and privacy came later). No company owns it. It works reliably and as intended on every platform, every operating system, every device. That's a rarity today and a hell of a valuable one.
More important are two things: the moat and the motive. The moat is the one between communications and applications. Communications say things, and applications interact with things. There are crossover areas, but something like email is designed and overwhelmingly used to say things, while websites and apps are overwhelmingly designed and used to interact with things. The moat between communication and action is important because it makes it very clear what certain tools are capable of, which in turn lets them be trusted and used properly. We know that all an email can ever do is say something to you (tracking pixels and read receipts notwithstanding). It doesn't download anything on its own, it doesn't run any apps or scripts, attachments are discrete items, unless they're images in the HTML, which is itself optional. Ultimately the whole package is always just going to be a big , static chunk of text sent to you, with the occasional file riding shotgun. Open it a year or ten from now and it's the same email. And that proscription goes both ways. No matter what you try to do with email, you can only ever say something with it -- with another email. If you want to do something, you leave the email behind and do it on the other side of the moat.
More important are two things: the moat and the motive. The moat is the one between communications and applications. Communications say things, and applications interact with things. There are crossover areas, but something like email is designed and overwhelmingly used to say things, while websites and apps are overwhelmingly designed and used to interact with things. The moat between communication and action is important because it makes it very clear what certain tools are capable of, which in turn lets them be trusted and used properly. We know that all an email can ever do is say something to you (tracking pixels and read receipts notwithstanding). It doesn't download anything on its own, it doesn't run any apps or scripts, attachments are discrete items, unless they're images in the HTML, which is itself optional. Ultimately the whole package is always just going to be a big , static chunk of text sent to you, with the occasional file riding shotgun. Open it a year or ten from now and it's the same email. And that proscription goes both ways. No matter what you try to do with email, you can only ever say something with it -- with another email. If you want to do something, you leave the email behind and do it on the other side of the moat.
What a great way to spread malicious code!
Let's see: AMP for GMAIL = bad. HTTPS Everywhere = BAD, Youtube demonitization schemes left up to algorithms = BAD
Anyone see the pattern? The pattern is that Google thinks it owns the web now.
If you send me an email in anything other than plain text it's not even going to get downloaded from the mailserver.
What I am more concerned with is how quickly this AMP-thing baked into email will be used for phishing and spreading malware. I mean, email is already used for that, but all of a sudden slapping interactivity on top of it will, without a doubt, make things a whole fucking lot worse. Email is a reasonably simple concept and while there are plenty of people who fall for various kinds of scams, it's at least easy enough that even old people can get along with it. Slapping all the issues that modern, interactive "web-apps" bring on there will confuse the hell out of people and, as anyone with half a brain knows, confusion is easy to exploit.
Thankfully, I doubt this will actually amount to much; Google has the habit of coming up with about 200 bad ideas every year that they trot out with a marching band and all, but then those ideas die with a whimper a year later.
Dear Consumer,
It doesn't matter what you want. You'll get what makes us the most profit, and like it.
Fuck You Very Much, and Have a Nice Day.
Hugs and Kisses,
- Your Friendly Neighborhood Free Service Provider
For future reference, once does not "poo poo" an idea. One pooh poohs an idea. Even if the idea happens to be poo poo.
I'm not generally a stickler for spelling or usage, but this one sticks in my craw. And don't nobody want poo poo stuck up in their craw, best believe.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Saying nobody really likes it is easily proven wrong. I do like it. My employees manage their tasks through their mail boxes. Now reports, alerts and what not can be interactive and accompanied by forms where they can take action. Directly in the e-mail client. And once they are done, they move e-mail to the DONE folder. And they can use tags, search, filters, and what not. And suddenly we no longer need to build this functionality for the intranet.
The reason why e-mail is so limited is because back in the day Microsoft and others did not know how to make it secure. Time to move on and stop being a Luddite.
Now we know why they removed the do no evil from their corporate culture.
Clearly Google is past the point of innovation, they are trying to "fix" something that isnt broken and no one really wants. I have my email server strip all media from emails and keep them in quarantine until i see the need for it and my client NEVER downloads anything from a server that isnt my own.
Email is for time insensitive communications and has no need for fancy pictures or themes. If you cant get your point across with out graphics then you best schedule a meeting because you will more than likely need to answer alot of questions after your presentation.
Back to the google, personally i cant wait until they fade in to obscurity like myspace or yahoo. The time is coming, we just need another competitor.
While I completely agree that email is good as it is and this is a monstrosity, I'm not so sure I agree there is a "moat" between email and applications.
Applications send email all the time. Email with links/buttons, which when clicked, interact with the applications. It's pretty cool, actually. So there's all kinds of interaction going on.
But - it's cool because it works with the limited tool set that email already has.
So maybe there is a moat - with a wide, comfortable drawbridge, but I agree that doesn't mean that we should drain the moat and fill it in with concrete.
> "Nobody really likes it, but it's the way nobody really likes sidewalks, or electrical outlets, or forks"
perhaps it is because I am old, but I rather like the type of discord that email provides. I abhor new platforms for 'communication' such as twitter-for-twits and facebook, for those who spend more time documenting the fake shit they do than actually doing the stuff they supposedly do. The idea that someone can say something in 250 words or less and believe that its enough to persuade someone is ludicrous and practically justifies slapping their teachers across the face. A persuasive argument requires points and counter points; all packaged and detailed through the body of the single letter. Think of it as opening, or closing, arguments in a trial. Would you want your attorney standing up during closing arguments, addressing the jury and just say "find my client innocent or you suck. #freemyclient #emojisarecool!" Yet this is were social media has led an entire generation of millennials who literally now graduate public schools not knowing how to write in cursive, write a check, or properly fill out an envelope and apply postage.
Didn't google make a claim about 10yrs ago that they were revolutionizing email with an entirely new product?? I believe they called it 'Wave'. How did that turn out for them? It appears that, at least for that project, the mayan calendar did, in fact, cause the end of its civilization (ie they pulled the plug on it at the end of 2012)
Why does that site even exist?
Yep, I'm done with a lot of nonsense so I'm returning to the old days of putting my own server online. Not hosted by somebody else, completely under my own control.
My Web page (No Java)
No JavaScript perhaps?
I can't see how it matters if Java, Perl, or ASP were used on the server side generation of the webpage. It's all the same to the end-user.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
No company owns it. It works reliably and as intended on every platform, every operating system, every device. That's a rarity today and a hell of a valuable one.
This USED to be true, BUT people and businesses are OVERWHELMINGLY moving their E-mail service to Office365 AND Google Apps.
I'll say it again THIS IS A TRAP. Over 60% of mailboxes may very well already be on these services..... As this number approaches 70%, 80%, 90%..... STANDARDIZATION WILL BEGIN TO UNRAVEL. The trend is that E-mail is going to become a Microsoft and Google technology, BECAUSE everybody is moving to the cloud, and as it stands now; MS and Google have a Duopoly in this industry.
What about Let's Encrypt. My website is https for no additional cost.
that brings up an entirely new question.. Did facebook and myspace kill the damn personal web pages? I can't even remember the last time someone had a someurl.com/~username/ link to hand out..
"engaging, interactive, and actionable email experiences."
WTF does that even mean.
I have to read an email, so I'm already engaging with it.
I have to reply to emails, so they're already actionable, and so interactive to an extent.
People like this twunt are the reason we have a 'Wanker Jar' in the meeting room at work.
It's like a swear jar, but for PR wankers. And it's surprisingly effective at training them to converse in a concise,meaningful way instead of spouting vague terms.
Great write up BeauHD (if I understand Slashdot's author reference). There is exactly nothing wrong with email, it's one of the most useful and reliable things in the tech world. Junkmail is annoying, so sadly companies have to spend a lot dealing with it, but other than that I wouldn't touch it.
Google making it interactive is a step in the wrong direction. They know just how critical email is and just want a way to turn it into the next mini-Facebook. No way, no how.
I can't see any organization accepting this junk idea. Personal email? I sure hope people are smarter than that.
The good news is we can safely ignore them, as they cannot coerce and punish people to follow their wishes by threatening with a lower rank on their search engine.
That one always champs my hide too.
This works as long as people are putting up with them. And until they notice "Page works in Firefox and even Edge but fails in Chrome and Safari", and the page owners also tell them why, i.e. because Google and Apple deliberately broke their browsers.
I'd dare to say that if they started rejecting the likes of Let's Encrypt, which would cause nearly every non-commercial site to instantly be considered insecure (and with HSTS this means unreachable), people would very quickly notice this, and they'd also notice quickly that the page works fine with alternative browsers.
And you know people: Given the choice between being able to reach their wanted content and being secure, they throw security to the ground before stomping over it. They would instantly dump Chrome and install Firefox instead if that's all it takes to get back onto their page.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Just try to validate an email address.
Why bother?
To me, that looks like the mother of all exploit vectors.
I switched my iPhone from using Google to DuckDuckGo for web searches because of AMP. So f*****g announced and intrusive. Now they have the arrogance to mess with email? Oh well I donâ(TM)t use gmail anyway because I already find the Google way with email so annoying. I guess enough people just go along with that this crap continues.
Seriously. In the past, people were happy about new features, excited even, asking when they're going to come and how they can use them, with boards and media being abuzz with the previews and reviews and the how-tos and whatnot.
Today, the first question everyone asks when a new feature gets announced is "How do I turn it off?"
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yes, today you can get your own SSL certificate from a few fly by night companies, bury Google and Apple effectively control who gets to publish valid SSL certificates and have demonstrated willingness to use that hammer.
While I agreed with your other point, this is just not true. Google and other browser companies can only add and remove trusted Root CAs. This doesn't allow them to control over end-entities that get issues SSL certificates. Removing trust from a specific root is a nuclear option, that lacks any kind of finite control. If Google decided they don't like Org ABC, there is nothing they could do to prevent Org ABC from getting an SSL cert that would be trusted by Chrome.
Where is apple tagging stuff to the bottom of emails?
Quite right. You've got to have standards.
I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
Verifying an email address may not be simple, but e-mail is.
Server 1 (sender): Hey Nameserver, what's the mail exchange record for contoso.com
Nameserver: Oh, it's 207.46.163.215
Server 1 is impolite and doesn't thank the name server, but goes on its merry way.
Server 1 (sender): Hey 207.46.163.215, EHLO
contoso.com: 250 contoso.com [207.46.163.215]
Server 1: MAIL FROM: soandso@microsoft.com
contoso.com: 250 Sender OK
Server 1: RCPT TO: soandso@contoso.com
contoso.com 250 Recipient OK
Server 1: DATA
contoso.com (if no errors): 354- Enter mail, end with a "." on line by itself.
Server 1: sends data
contoso.com: 250 - message accepted
Server 1: QUIT
It's just a simple conversation according to RFC 2821.
No, AMP would be a horrible idea.
Stopping this charade that mobile devices should get inferior pages on every website instead of the full experience on the other hand would be a good idea.
Cell phones these days have almost as much processing power as full computers. They often have higher resolution screens, and are fully capable of using the internet, Unfortunately a large percentage of the internet is crippled when you try to browse it without manually telling each webpage that you want desktop mode, and even then many sites refuse to oblige and continue to serve the crippled version of their site.
There should be no such thing as a "mobile" website. There should just be "websites" because I have never once met a desktop site that didn't work on my phone, and I have never once met a "mobile" site that was better in any way than the desktop version of the same site when accessing them from my phone.
AMP needs to die.
Mobile pages need to die.
Let me access the actual site, by default, on my phone!
Yes lets take the most rock solid pillar of internet communication and extend it so it only works right in Chrome Broswers.
What a Microsoft-1990s move. It's the reason everyone hated microsoft for a decade. Embrace and extend.
But they never had the gall to go this big. Why not embrace and extend TCIP too google? They already are doing DNS so it wouldn't be that hard. Facebook's VPN might give it a whirl too.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
AMP is already not that great. This doesn't need to be in email
Also, stop trying to fuck up emails.
The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.
Just because the idea is blatantly self-serving, doesn't mean it's wrong in general.
Yes, Google may indirectly benefit from HTTPS everywhere. However, HTTPS everywhere IS needed, because the parade of malicious actors never stops and every layer of security we add can only be a good thing.
It used to be enough to save all your emails. Now you need to save screenshots of all of your emails.
But don't worry, they're working on developing AMP for screenshots, coming soon to a computer near you!
The only reason you would even consider saying that is because you have no idea of history. Microsoft already tried to pull the "everything is an app" idea. The end result was an unmitigated nightmare. Ditto for Adobe with their earlier versions of PDF. This is why most modern email clients ignore script by default, and most decent emails clients won't permit downloading of data external to the email without the user explicitly clicking a button to do so (or setting up a whitelist, etc).
There is a REASON why anyone with an ounce of security expertise say that there must be a clear line of separation between data and executable code. There is not one single example of where this design *hasn't* bitten people in the ass.
And now Google wants to recreate the exact same nightmare because they're stuck in this infantile "Won't that be SO COOL!?" mindset and is no longer able to consider the already well established consequences of their actions.
This is as moronic as their idea to allow the browser to bypass the operating system and have direct access to bluetooth hardware.
Many of us have already "seen this in action" and if you do some research you will know what we already know. It is beyond any shadow of a doubt a bad idea.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Seems like I was right to open up a few ProtonMail accounts sometime ago, I knew Google stupidity for trendy crap and messing with stuff that shouldn't be messed with would eventually catch their more traditional services and platforms...
Well, perhaps they are sane enough to make it an opt-in feature, depending on the real intentions behind the move.
To me, it's pretty simple: the more you enable "advanced features" in a given service or platform, the more potential it has to be exploited for all the bad reasons.
And it's ok when the potential threat makes sense for the service.. but e-mail shouldn't be messed up with.
What's the current source of most problems regarding e-mails right now? It matches perfectly with AMP description: "engaging, interactive, and actionable email experiences". It's being able to click on a link with a suspicious URL behind it that people don't care or know to check, which ends up in phishing scams, ransomware and whatnot.
Oooh, but Google will make sure this new thing is secure. Like the Play Store?
Seems it's time to switch to a platform that knows when to keep the right things as is. It's fine to give alternatives to the interface itself, with stuff like Inbox. I didn't like it, others did, it's an option.
But if I wanted engaging, interactive and actionable something, I wouldn't be reading my e-mails. Not everything needs to be like that, and there are good reasons for it.
No company owns it [email].
That's the "problem" Google is fixing.
You cannot.
Like FTP is something buried deep into the story of internet.
You should not.
It works. If it works, you ain't fix it.
You can modernize SMTP , though.
For example, if the client is online during the delivery attempt you can/should deliver straight to it.
If not, to the mailbox.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
I'm not generally a stickler for spelling or usage, but this one sticks in my craw.
For one I agree with you, for all in tents and porpoises.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
That's what I said in a post on the previous AMP article https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... Definitely not legal in situations where companies are required to keep records.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
Naybe because both domsins, and hosting ate rediculesly cheap, why have somecomany.com/~username when you can have yourname, (com,net,org etc) for almost nothing?
"engaging, interactive, and actionable email experiences."
All of those words have to do with marketing. What user really wants their spam to be more "engaging, interactive, and actionable"? "Actionable" especially. That is Google-speak for "the user can initiate a purchase directly from the page". This change has absolutely nothing to do with providing a feature to users.
(actually, an ex did once say in response to a stated wish for ads to be illegal with the question "but how would we know what to buy?", but that's one reason why she's an ex.)
It still costs server load and electricity.
Without JavaScript, senders cannot control their content. Like to say different things at different times. To enforce DRM. To self destruct.
Nobody under 20 uses it. They use whatever proprietary messaging app their friends use this year. And they are getting older every year.
Middle aged women use Facebook messenger.
Email is dead. Get over it.
Not quite true. It's possible to maintain an "Untrusted Certificates" list - Windows does this already - and simply decide that you don't like site A so their certificate goes on the banned list. Since the Chrome installer is often run as admin, it could add certs to the "Untrusted Certificates" store for the local computer, which would also break the site for Edge and any applications relying on the Windows certificate store. While I'm sure it would quickly be noticed, it'd still be disruptive.
That's good. Watching that reminds me that I've never watched Blackadder. Back in the day, it didn't make it to my local public broadcasting station here in the states and I never got around to it.
Thanks.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Uh... I experience cognitive dissonance when reading that comment and then reading that sig. Full disclosure, I read emails in text and have the option to view them in full html should I choose to do so. I can't imagine AMP being something I'd ever want to use, but I'm sure some people will love it. And no, I don't read emails in a browser, I have a standalone program for email. Gmail? Pfft, I have an Android phone so have a gmail address, only Google knows it as I've never used it and view it maybe once a year, if that. Hmm, preview shows this as one solid lump of text, not neatly divided into short paragraphs, let's see how it goes when I hit submit....
Nope, one solid lump of text... nice one, Slashdot. Not.
The incremental cost is negligible and in many (most now?) cases HTTPS connections provide better throughput.
Citation: I work on quantum-safe crypto.
- chrish
I just got over having to pay for a certificate just like I got over having top pay for a domain name.
The Internet isn't free. Information doesn't 'know' anything, much less if it's 'free'. Given a choice people will not pay for anything unless the free is not useful.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Your mobile browser does not let you pretend to be on desktop ?
Webites sometimes still probe further and find out you are on mobile, but most websites don't in my experience. Do you see many websites do that ?
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
The point is that it's stupid to have to manually tell each page that your computer is capable of being a computer. It should assume that if you got that far that you're using a device capable of browsing web pages and not neuter the pages!
Sure, I can fake my user agent string, but what a ridiculous world we live in if the only way to browse the web in a useful fashion is to have to trick each page in to doing what should be it's default operating mode.
There is absolutely ZERO excuse for ANY page to have a "mobile view". Cell phones are ALWAYS better off with the full experience.
Not each page. I have used multiple Android browsers that can be set to always default to desktop pages.
But sometimes I like the "mobile pages", as they are often simpler and even lack advertisements or other layout issues. It depends on the page and the website.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.