Terence Eden Resigns From Google AMP Advisory Committee, Says AMP is 'Poorly Implemented, and Hostile To the Interests of Both Users and Publishers' (shkspr.mobi) 49
Terence Eden: I am concerned that -- despite the hard work of the AC -- Google has limited interest in that goal. When I joined, I wondered whether I could make a difference. I hope that I have been a critical friend. The AC has encouraged AMP to think more about user needs -- rather than Google's needs. And changes to the search carousel were also a concern of the committee which have been partly addressed.
Google's thesis is that the mobile-web is dying and people prefer to use apps -- therefore making the web faster and more app-like will retain users. Google doesn't publish data about this, so I can't directly criticise their motives. But I do not think AMP, in its current implementation, helps make the web better. I remain convinced that AMP is poorly implemented, hostile to the interests of both users and publishers, and a proprietary & unnecessary incursion into the open web. I am glad that I tried to make it better, but I'm sad to have failed.
Google's thesis is that the mobile-web is dying and people prefer to use apps -- therefore making the web faster and more app-like will retain users. Google doesn't publish data about this, so I can't directly criticise their motives. But I do not think AMP, in its current implementation, helps make the web better. I remain convinced that AMP is poorly implemented, hostile to the interests of both users and publishers, and a proprietary & unnecessary incursion into the open web. I am glad that I tried to make it better, but I'm sad to have failed.
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AMP sites are not correctly displayed on any of my devices running (Android 10, Linux, Chrome, Firefox, Brave)
Re: AMP sites are not correctly displayed in my... (Score:1)
Whiners!! (Score:5, Funny)
Ok, but other than the fact that AMP sites don't render on anything without fucking up something, and they're nonstandard and weird, and they don't load from your own server so you can't figure out problems (or do analytics) from your own log files, and you lose your own appearance/branding, and the entire purpose is to serve the interests of a arbitrary third party with absolute priority over the interests of users and publishers, and the only people I can find on the entire world-wide internet who have anything nice to say about them are all Google employees (and in marketing, not the tech guys), what's so bad about AMP?
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Well, it loses Google traffic to their search engine.
I've stopped using it completely on mobile devices so that I can get search results that actually link to the sites.
Apps? Really? (Score:2)
Google’s thesis is that the mobile-web is dying and people prefer to use apps – therefore making the web faster and more app-like will retain users.
Do people really prefer to use apps? Or is it all of those incredibly annoying sites that are trying to push the app with popups and people just give up and click the download/use the app button and move on with life?
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If its a site I use frequently, yes. Apps are faster, have a less limited user interface, and can do all sorts of helpful things like cache data for offline use/ahead of online use. I'm not going to download an app for a rarely used website, but a decent app is always going to be better than a decent website.
Re:Apps? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
The web can do caching as well, if you have a web-developer who isn't five years behind.
Re:Apps? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
But why are these Apps faster with a less limited user interface? 90% of the Apps on my phone do not offer anything that HTML5 cannot do. However I get them because they run better than what their web portal offers.
I think we are kinda in a Stupid Cycle with Mobile Apps.
People pick Apps because they are better than the web
Companies don't fix their web version because everyone gets the App
A web Application without a mobile App, is often ignored, because it doesn't have an App, so the company will basically make an App that is a stripped down web browser control and access its site.
There are a few good reasons to make a Mobile App.
1. You want the product to run even if there is no connectivity (most Apps fail this criteria)
2. The App uses the devices more platform specific features (camera, sensors, 3d graphics rendering, phone) in which HTML standard doesn't support or isn't implemented well yet.
3. You need to lock down deployment or connect to a data ports isn't HTTPS or https like.
Re:Apps? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Apps? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
None of those are the reasons companies push mobile apps:
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Also worth mentioning: with an app, you don't have to keep downloading a webpage. Only relevant for apps that are used frequently.
Re:Apps? Really? (Score:4, Interesting)
But why are these Apps faster with a less limited user interface? 90% of the Apps on my phone do not offer anything that HTML5 cannot do. However I get them because they run better than what their web portal offers.
The answer can be found in the sites "privacy" policy. They want you to install the app so they can steal your data and spy on you.
Re: Apps? Really? (Score:2)
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I do how ever take an issue with installing a bunch of apps on my phone. Its not like they have a really great trackrecord from keeping out malware from them.
I just don't want a bunch of stupid apps running on my phone. Sorry reddit, but I'm never installing your app.
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Just FYI, you can write web pages in the form of a "reactive app", which basically means that the web page runs and is cached client side and talks to backend APIs over the internet, in the same fashion that a native app would work. These apps work with and without internet connectivity. My web-dev buddy was showing me his POC web app with this behavior back in 2014 or maybe 2015 (either way it was quite a while ago, at least in terms of web development).
Then in my more recent personal experience, I've
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Correct. Apps are mostly just another runaway business trend. There are a few good use cases for them, and a few good apps, and then a bunch of unnecessary ones that are just shoved down our throats.
the use case is to track users (Score:1)
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Apple basically broke online advertising on the web
You'll need to elaborate on that.
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What is short-sighted about it? If your content is worth it, people will pay for it, if it's not, then nothing of value was really lost then was it? There was a point in history where people created content on the internet not to make money but just for the sake of creating it and sharing it with others.
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If your content is worth it, people will pay for it
How would people pay? Cards' $0.30 transaction fee makes pay-per-page impractical. Every time you visit another site, you'd need a separate
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Re: Apps? Really? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yep. I mostly ditched them on realising they were little more than a dedicated browser that forced an inferior mobile site on me. I have a fully capable browser on my phone. I donâ(TM)t need a gimped mobile site, and I certainly donâ(TM)t need a dedicated browser to run it.
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I hate apps. Only have a few installed. Lazy web developers.
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I still use my mobile web browser for most websites. But to people that think not a single phone app is justified, I suppose all you do is consume content? I can't imagine wanting to keep a mobile browser tab open at all times and watch for motion on a video camera. If all you do is browse websites then yeah, I can
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I interpreted the anti-app sentiments as referring to the apps that intend to replace websites, rather than apps that provide features not normally web delivered.
That matches my app installations too. The apps I have tend to work with the device hardware; the only app I have that 'replicates' a website is the Smugmug one. That one greatly simplifies photo uploads and also lets me cache my entire photo site on my device, which is often helpful - many times I've been somewhere with a poor/missing mobile signa
Push notifications in web applications (Score:2)
I can't imagine wanting to keep a mobile browser tab open at all times and watch for motion on a video camera.
In theory, you shouldn't have to. A web application can use Service Worker, Push, and the Notification API to notify you of motion even when the tab is closed. See documentation from Mozilla [mozilla.org] and documentation from Google [google.com].
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People like to use a few apps, but not a huge number of them. So people here probably have a Facebook app, but not a Slashdot one. [I have neither--and don't use Facebook.]
Apps.... (Score:4, Insightful)
I really hate it when a website I open tells me to download the app. I have about a couple of apps for websites, because they gave me some financial incentive to download them, plus Amazon as i use it often. Oh, and I had a couple of dating apps that had websites when I was single. Otherwise, why would I want to install software for every simple website I want to visit, it's completely crazy. And it is actually harder to make a good app, when they can't even seem to be able to make good websites nowadays!
But AMP websites are not better, they are even worse, they perverse the web itself. It's the same as most things google has done the last few years in the name of "speed" or "security".
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I really hate the present situation. There are a lot of application where being 'app' rather than some SPA blob running in a browser is better.
However for basic e-commerce and your typical loyalty program type stuff. Having to install your app is a just a huge pain in the neck. FFS 90% of those are just web view looking at some local HTML docs anyway. Its not like any of the functionality works if I don't have network. I could download the cached assets 300 times before it would be as many bytes as all th
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Honestly, in most cases a *decent* mobile web site would work every bit as well as an app - there's a reason you don't have 10-million web apps on your PC - the website works plenty well, and you don't have to trust random web app not to F'k over your computer security.
What I would like to see though is the ability to tell your browser to maintain a local cached version of particular sites so that you don't have to sit around waiting for the hideous lag that so frequently accompanies mobile sites (what's th
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I really hate it when a website I open tells me to download the app.
You can change your user-agent so it doesn't see the mobile OS in question. Yeah, that might make it hard to read on mobile though.
Mobile users. (Score:1)
Mobile users should be segregated to their own internet, and the rest of the internet should be read-only. No input boxes, no posts, no nothing. Look but not touch. How many times do you hear the battle cry of "I'm on mobile" when you tell them to do something extremely simple?
One voice in the chorus (Score:3, Insightful)
"Users prefer web apps" (Score:4, Insightful)
Google's thesis is that the mobile-web is dying and people prefer to use apps
Um, FUCK NO
I much prefer seeing the web version, as that's far more customizable to my needs of how I want to see the content, instead of having an app forced down my throat
The real problem that AMP is supposed to address, is easily solvable by website developers thinning their sites down [1mb.club] to maintain speed and performance.
AMP is the (useless) solution to this problem that nobody asked for, and was only forced upon us by Google's momentum, and for its own benefit.
What's the Problem? (Score:2)
AMP is just yet another web format, basically like RSS, Atom and whatnot. Use it or don't. Nobody really cares. People are using it because it hints at a website/pea programmed by non-idiots and increases Google rank. Once that last feature goes by the wayside, AMP will join that increasing heap of come and gone web formats. Until then I see no Problem whatsoever with AMP. It's not that difficult to understand or implement. So, either way, no big deal.
Re:What's the Problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a Google controlled standard they are using the search monopoly to force on the world. Similar to how MS used their OS monopoly to push IE with it's not-the-same-as-the-standards HTML rendering to control the standard. That's the problem. It's an abuse of monopoly power.
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It's a Google controlled standard they are using the search monopoly to force on the world. Similar to how MS used their OS monopoly to push IE with it's not-the-same-as-the-standards HTML rendering to control the standard. That's the problem. It's an abuse of monopoly power.
And on top of all the obvious horrible things about it that Qbertino is somehoe unaware of, it usually just fucks up the page so it doesn't render at all.
Quit parroting Google (Score:3)
"Google's thesis is that the mobile-web is dying and people prefer to use apps -- therefore making the web faster and more app-like will retain users. Google doesn't publish data about this, so I can't directly criticise their motives."
Of course, the quoted statement likely has nothing to do with Google's real core motives.
In the end, Google wants to be serving all web content from their own servers so they can collect and own all the information about all users. AMP is an attempt to move people further towards the Facebook-ization of the web.
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"Google's thesis is that the mobile-web is dying and people prefer to use apps -- therefore making the web faster and more app-like will retain users. Google doesn't publish data about this, so I can't directly criticise their motives."
Of course, the quoted statement likely has nothing to do with Google's real core motives.
In the end, Google wants to be serving all web content from their own servers so they can collect and own all the information about all users. AMP is an attempt to move people further towards the Facebook-ization of the web.
Basically yes. They want all of the web to go through Google.
Re:Quit parroting Google (Score:4, Interesting)
In the end, Google wants to be serving all web content from their own servers so they can collect and own all the information about all users. AMP is an attempt to move people further towards the Facebook-ization of the web.
That's just factually incorrect. Cloudflare [cloudflare.com] has an AMP cache and so does Microsoft [bing.com]. AMP is an open standard. You don't have to use Google's cache.
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You're right, I don't. I just don't use any AMP links ever.
AMP is actually a great idea (Score:2)
Google should keep it up and see how much of the world they can get to pursuit anti-trust actions against them.
WAP 2.0 (Score:2)
Whooda thunk it? WAP 2.0 went the same way as the original WAP.
Refresh my memory. (Score:2)
AMP? AC? Should I know what these mean? Admittedly I have been out of software development for several years now.
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This. I read the summary and all I could think of was the video for the Turbo Encabulator.
Apps? (Score:2)
Amp is the new Flash (Score:2)
Everyone should conspire to make Amp go away. Itâ(TM)s a scourge that serves nobody. Just like Flash didnâ(TM)t serve Adobe.
Shows how out of touch Google is... (Score:2)
Personally I'd rather just use the web browser, not an app except for certain cases.
Apps continue to run in the background, eat away at your battery and data, and a lot are just a wrapper around a browser anyhow.
It's funny how the desktop went from apps to all browser based interfaces, yet Google is all "PEOPLE WANT APPS ON MOBILE!".... More like Google most likely found it can collect more data with an app vs folks using the web browser...