[greenspot]

Google is abusing its powers. The search rank is our currency and Google has pushed AMP sites to the top for some while. So, everybody is now building weird AMP layers for their sites. We went from a free to a proprietary mobile web in just a few weeks. And we can't do anything. It feels like the times when the Internet Explorer tried to rule except that more people were complaining.

The open solution to a faster mobile web would have been so easy: Just penalize large and slow web pages without defining a dedicated mobile specification. That's it. This wasn't done in the past, slow pages outperformed fast ones on the SERPs because of some weird Google voodoo ranking, heck sometimes even desktop sites outperformed responsive ones on smartphones. If they had just tweaked these odd ranking rules in way that speed and size got more impact on the overall ranking there wouldn't have been any reason for AMP—the market would have regulated itself.

I'm wondering who at Google is responsible for AMP. Who created AMP's random specs (no external CSS but external fonts files, preference for four selected font providers, no JS but their JS, probable ranking preference of Google cached AMP sites, etc.). Why did they decide on the spec themselves and not as a part of an industry group? Again why didn't they just tweaked their ranking algorithm and btw, they could have also made Android's Chrome faster, it's still significantly slower than iOS' Safari. I'd be happy if this person could comment on the abuse of power (Sundar Pichai?).

[usernam]

> The open solution to a faster mobile web would have been so easy: Just penalize large and slow web pages without defining a dedicated mobile specification

It's obvious they have a different view on this. You can see this first-hand on their pagespeed tool. Pagespeed ranks your pages mostly according to random features, irregardless of size and performance. Actual test you can perform: 1kb web page with no compression ranks lower than 1mb web page after compression: "because you should enable server-side compression".

Their mobile assessment tool is similarly a joke.

The sad thing is that I'm likely getting a lower ranking on my website with has 5kb vanilla uncompressed js (gasp, not even async!) compared to the glittered rating of a 5mb homepage which loads 5mb+ more excluding webfonts from external CDNs.

You can taste that this has spread into google monoculture by the performance of their own web services.

[freehunter]

>You can taste that this has spread into google monoculture by the performance of their own web services.

I gave up on Google Maps a long time ago. On my desktop or laptop, it loads in chunks. Like, the map loads, then the search bar loads, then the navigation (zoom tools, etc) loads. When I click and drag, many times I end up selecting the page instead of moving the map because it hasn't finished loading. I use Bing Maps on desktop and Apple Maps on mobile, only using Google Maps when I need to verify an address is the right place or find a company's hours, since their data is better than their competitors.

But man their performance is worse. Way worse.

[nebabyte]

regardless

[nailer]

> I'm wondering who at Google is responsible for AMP. Who created AMP's random specs (no external CSS but external fonts files, preference for four selected font providers, no JS but their JS, probable ranking preference of Google cached AMP sites, etc.).

A bunch of people, but Malte Ubl is one of the main people and has the best tech talks on why they picked the techniques and hacks they did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfekj564rs0

I'd recommend watching that for how it works than asking @amphtml questions.

Node people: I did a node specific presentation at LNUG you might like:

https://mikemaccana.github.io/quick-wins-with-node-and-amp/#...

I use AMP on CertSimple but appreciate that AMP favors 'speed achieved using specific techniques' rather than speed per se. There's the RealPolitik element where we as site owners have to do what Google say.

[coldtea]

>I use AMP on CertSimple but appreciate that AMP favors 'speed achieved using specific techniques' rather than speed per se.

Why on god's name anybody would appreciate that?

[ronjouch]

> "The open solution to a faster mobile web would have been so easy: just penalize large and slow web pages, without defining a dedicated mobile specification."

A million times yes. As to why this didn't happen, I feel it would have been too restricted to "merely solving the problem", and not active enough on pushing Google's agenda to tighten its control on the web.

All other things being equal, option A being "efficient & neutral" (just penalize slow pages) is, as a business, inferior to option B "more convoluted but with potentially profitable side-effects" (AMP).

Other takes?

EDIT I should have better read the linked article before posting this, what I'm writing here is close to what the article "Lock In" section says.

[wheelerwj]

> Google is abusing its powers.

They are a business, doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing.

It's up to us to find a way to kill google and take back our internet.

Edit, i love the downvotes for this. Google is legally required to act in their shareholders best interests. You all should understand fiduciary duty. They are building long term value for a massive (and growing) customer segment at the expense of a relatively small base of idealist tech users. Its morally reprehensible but still the correct decision in today's business climate.

[nothrabannosir]

You're right, but that point isn't relevant.

What you're giving is an explanation, not an excuse. Nobody is incredulous at Google's motivations (money). We're just not satisfied with it.

Before you can solve a problem, you must identify it clearly. That's what we're doing here. Saying "yeah but it's only logical" isn't the point. Look:

> It's up to us to find a way to kill google and take back our internet.

You mean, like discussing why AMP is bad and why we shouldn't use it?

[coldtea]

>They are a business, doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing.

There was such a thing as ethical and societal responsibility for businesses.

Thinking making profit by any means as long as they are nominally legal is acceptable for a company is just something some people believe. No natural law that says it has to be so -- we could easily (and have had) believe the opposite.

[joelthelion]

> They are a business, doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing.

Violating anti-trust laws?

[a_imho]

Criticizing Google too strongly e.g. kill google is a surefire way to get downvotes. Which is pretty much the same logic you described. HN is frequented by googlers, even if it is not exactly a duty to downvote comments like yours, it makes some sense. Or maybe I'm just seeing things.

[colordrops]

> required to act in their shareholders best interests

This is an extremely vague requirement. Potentially killing their brand name among developers and potentially initiating a slow long decline into irrelevancy certainly counts as not acting in their shareholders' best interests. When google first started, their "don't be evil" mantra was one of the main reasons they succeeded, so not doing unethical shit is in their shareholders' best interests.

[geofft]

> You all should understand fiduciary duty.

We do. You should understand it. http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-cor...

The interpretation of "fiduciary duty" / "they are a business" that you're implying is an urban legend, easily debunked by the fact that Google has no fiduciary duty to open a gas station in rural North Dakota as soon as they realize from Google Maps data that one would be profitable.

[ksk]

>Its morally reprehensible but still the correct decision in today's business climate.

Using your logic if slavery were to become legal again, businesses should rush to use the free labor because "fiduciary duty".

This is why they teach business ethics.

[27182818284]

Fiduciary duty it isn't a magic spell that shareholders cast and then the company does everything all the time to squeeze profit out of everything. Lots of Google services are still free (as in price)

[manigandham]

You should understand fiduciary duty vs corporate director responsibility.

Best interest != monetary gain.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-cor...

[mike-cardwell]

If "you" use Chrome, then Amp is your fault. You gave an advertising company control of the Web.

[driverdan]

AMP and Chrome are two completely independent things.

[AstralStorm]

More like "if you use Google". Sadly, nobody has built just as good alternative search engine. Or as nice webmail.

Generally, Google has huge resources to spend at making their search and their advertising platform outperform others, and they haven't degenerated enough to allow a swift moving company to disrupt their market.

[nrjdhsbsid]

The crazy thing is that AMP is open source and this is still happening. I've been tracking their GitHub and what is happening is that while yes, the source is open, they won't let you add anything they don't like.

Oh, and if you try to fork AMP you fail the official validators and suddenly your site isn't AMP anymore. What is happening in this case is that open source is doing nothing to stop AMP from being proprietary because it's worthless unless you have the "blessed" version.

Take for example the most obvious change, to make the original URL visible in the banner. There's tens maybe hundreds of GitHub issues on this and it's still languishing. In the rare case anyone official replies it's some bs about how it will affect the user experience or "interfere with Google's cache" in some roundabout and unspecified way. They leave a few of these issues open so that whenever you start another they can close it as a duplicate. Otherwise their repo would be overrun with them.

Open source doesn't matter if someone holds the keys to the kingdom and "validates" your sources. A dark pattern indeed.

AMP in its current form is certainly evil. The only way that could be changed is if Google opens up the ability to cache the page by a different provider with different validators.

I smell antitrust

[pawadu]

> I've been tracking their GitHub and what is happening is that while yes, the source is open, they won't let you add anything they don't like.

Well, thats basically how Android works.

And with the upcoming policy changes (in CDD and GCM) things will get even worse.

[hydrogen18]

Isn't this just another variety of Tivoization? The platform is nominally open source, but unable to run anything other than approved code.

[jimrandomh]

Do you have a specific example of a rejected pull request or feature? It seems also possible that people outside google aren't contributing for other reasons, like lack of interest.