I could find this useful with some types of transactional emails. I'm currently working on an app where a user submits their timesheet and an email is sent to a manager to approve the time. Right now the manager has to click "Review Time" in the email where they will then be kicked out to a portal I setup that lets them review the entries. With something like AMP I could embed all that logic in the actual email, letting the manager submit a review without having to leave that email.
The problem with all of this is none of it will work because of platform support. Like you said support for AMP Emails is limited to Gmail and maybe a handful of other clients. Part of me wishes that AMP Emails were an actual standard rather than a "standard" that google created to help itself. And with only Gmail really having support, you know this will only ever get used in marketing shenanigans and to more deeply track you.
> On the one hand we have some companies trying to block things like tracker pixels and other static images for tracking purposes.
Speaking of which, when you access Gmail via IMAP, Google replaces every URL in HTML email with a tracking link, having you go through their servers first before being redirected to where you actually want to go.
I think that the entire concept of dynamic emails is misguided and eliminates a few of the strengths of email.
I already make sure to never allow my mailreader to render HTML or resolve links anyway, though, for security reasons. So I guess this won't affect me any.
I've said it before, Google Chrome is the modern IE in terms of pushing proprietary web solutions that block out the competition, I can't remember which services it was but a few times I've seen here on HN people complaining that new Google Products work only in Chrome, but if you fake the browser agent in Firefox, it works just the same, they are just blocking out other browsers, which is really bad, I wonder where that lands a company in ADA compliance if you cannot even access something in your browser due to some developer somewhere not thinking about other browsers.
Any email with linked images was already "somewhat dynamic" - I've used (abused) this in the past to fix incorrect logos on emails that had already been sent, etc.
Dynamic or not I've found most emails these days don't include anything useful in the email anyway, you have to click through to get any information out of it.
This could change that of course but the emails don't have information in them because of Gmail.
Senders are already going out of their way to ruin the user experience just to stop Gmail slurping up all the information.
It's actually not entirely that. Google appears to have some kind of unpublished "quality score" that is applied to emails received in a Gmail account, and it uses this score to determine if the message will appear on the inbox tab or in the promotions tab (or worse, the spam box).
One big part of raising this mysterious and possibly just a myth "quality score" is to increase your emails open rates and especially your click-to-open rate. Basically, the more people you get to open your email and then to click through to your website, the better that Google will think your emails are performing and the more likely they are to appear in the inbox in the future.
Plus, clicking through an email provides tracking information not only to Google, but also to the site you clicked through to, which helps them with their marketing campaigns or whatever else they are doing with their tracking info.
There is an entire pseudo-science that email marketing people use in attempts to increase deliverability and "inboxing" in Gmail and a lot of it just comes down to "get more people to click through to your website", and it does appear to help, at least anecdotally.
You get a flight booking email confirmation. It contains the day and time of your departure. Two weeks later, the flight takeoff time is moved up by an hour. It's nice to see that information reflected in the initial confirmation email when you go to look it up and find your confirmation number or whatever.
This is one of those things everyone told the allegedly "open" AMP project was a very, very bad idea, and the AMP project lead basically told everyone Gmail was doing it whether people liked it or not, and then insinuated anyone who had an issue with it was violating the Code of Conduct.
It’s quite astonishing to think how divorced from reality you must be to see how badly the whole AMP thing has gone and think “Yup AMP for gmail. That’s what we need.”
Don't forget all questions about this were ignored, issues on GutHub were closed, and then the project lead wrote a self-congratulatory blog post on how the whole AMP process is open and transparent.
I can't get past the feeling that this is what Wave could have been, and now I'm torn between the infinite possibilities it opens up and the horror that Google will have even more power over their kind of emails no one should support.
I think the idea is good but the semantics aren't aligned: if a "thing" is to be modified, it can't be an email. There is too much history ingrained about emails being static and updates appearing in another email. But maybe this can open up a new form of collaboration that never mentions the word "email" but uses SMTP/IMAP as a transport. I'm thinking about what Deltachat is doing and it's using the protocols to transport "metadata" information that is not to be read directly by users. They even created embedded apps to further the capabilities and give users a way to do much more than just exchanging messages: https://webxdc.org/
All in all there is a place for self-modifiable documents with updates transported via SMTP, but the semantics need to be very clear. And it's hard to believe Google and follow it to be a good steward for an open, beneficial protocol and idea.
Those of us that are software developers need to reject this if possible. I regret not doing enough to inform my organization on why AMP should be considered harmful back when it was becoming a thing. Even though they likely would have still gone ahead with it, there was still a decent chance they could have been persuaded.
> Modern DKIM deployments are problematic because they incentivize a specific kind of crime: theft of private emails for use in public blackmail and extortion campaigns.
was I the only one that read this like... oh, this is how we plan on getting past your carefully curated spam filter, by changing the email after it slides in?
I do think that we need some other markup language that is more consistent across platforms, but AMP doesn't sound like it. Neither should emails have dynamic content (though some vendors bypass that already with .gifs).
I would already be satisfied with email clients supporting Markdown, but then it couldn't fully replace HTML in terms of flexibility. It'd just be a nicer middle ground between plain text and HTML.
Don't post this like it's something new. It has been around since 2019. With all the usual pushback and everyone being annoyed it even exists. But has adoption picked up? Probably no. It's not new.
[+] [-] nerdjon|3 years ago|reply
All this screams to me is that google has way too much power in email to be able to implement something like this.
On the one hand we have some companies trying to block things like tracker pixels and other static images for tracking purposes.
Then we have google saying "lets make emails dynamic" and just making it easier to track.
I hope no other email provider adds support for this. Email needs to remain static and platform agnostic.
[+] [-] _fat_santa|3 years ago|reply
The problem with all of this is none of it will work because of platform support. Like you said support for AMP Emails is limited to Gmail and maybe a handful of other clients. Part of me wishes that AMP Emails were an actual standard rather than a "standard" that google created to help itself. And with only Gmail really having support, you know this will only ever get used in marketing shenanigans and to more deeply track you.
[+] [-] ilammy|3 years ago|reply
Speaking of which, when you access Gmail via IMAP, Google replaces every URL in HTML email with a tracking link, having you go through their servers first before being redirected to where you actually want to go.
[+] [-] kotaKat|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JohnFen|3 years ago|reply
I already make sure to never allow my mailreader to render HTML or resolve links anyway, though, for security reasons. So I guess this won't affect me any.
[+] [-] everfrustrated|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] giancarlostoro|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 57FkMytWjyFu|3 years ago|reply
https://www.howtogeek.com/427457/how-to-disable-dynamic-emai...
[+] [-] dr_kiszonka|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Rackedup|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bombcar|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] janosdebugs|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agileAlligator|3 years ago|reply
That was my first thought. Just requires one vulnerability, and boom everyone who has a gmail account is at risk
[+] [-] corobo|3 years ago|reply
This could change that of course but the emails don't have information in them because of Gmail.
Senders are already going out of their way to ruin the user experience just to stop Gmail slurping up all the information.
[+] [-] jasongill|3 years ago|reply
One big part of raising this mysterious and possibly just a myth "quality score" is to increase your emails open rates and especially your click-to-open rate. Basically, the more people you get to open your email and then to click through to your website, the better that Google will think your emails are performing and the more likely they are to appear in the inbox in the future.
Plus, clicking through an email provides tracking information not only to Google, but also to the site you clicked through to, which helps them with their marketing campaigns or whatever else they are doing with their tracking info.
There is an entire pseudo-science that email marketing people use in attempts to increase deliverability and "inboxing" in Gmail and a lot of it just comes down to "get more people to click through to your website", and it does appear to help, at least anecdotally.
[+] [-] Avamander|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] waste_monk|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] password4321|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cloudking|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saos|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xd1936|3 years ago|reply
That's off the top of my head...
[+] [-] ocdtrekkie|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seanhunter|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmitriid|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rakoo|3 years ago|reply
I think the idea is good but the semantics aren't aligned: if a "thing" is to be modified, it can't be an email. There is too much history ingrained about emails being static and updates appearing in another email. But maybe this can open up a new form of collaboration that never mentions the word "email" but uses SMTP/IMAP as a transport. I'm thinking about what Deltachat is doing and it's using the protocols to transport "metadata" information that is not to be read directly by users. They even created embedded apps to further the capabilities and give users a way to do much more than just exchanging messages: https://webxdc.org/
All in all there is a place for self-modifiable documents with updates transported via SMTP, but the semantics need to be very clear. And it's hard to believe Google and follow it to be a good steward for an open, beneficial protocol and idea.
[+] [-] ravenstine|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ftyhbhyjnjk|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] password4321|3 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25113482
> Modern DKIM deployments are problematic because they incentivize a specific kind of crime: theft of private emails for use in public blackmail and extortion campaigns.
[+] [-] 57FkMytWjyFu|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] soheil|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gadders|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] einpoklum|3 years ago|reply
Use FOSS mail clients, using standard protocols, with IMAP, POP3 and SMTP servers.
[+] [-] Avamander|3 years ago|reply
I would already be satisfied with email clients supporting Markdown, but then it couldn't fully replace HTML in terms of flexibility. It'd just be a nicer middle ground between plain text and HTML.
[+] [-] peanut_worm|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jgalt212|3 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
[+] [-] ChrisArchitect|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] soheil|3 years ago|reply