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Comment by shawkinaw | Hacker News Reader

I'm as skeptical of Google and any of their initiatives as the next guy, but I'll tell you what, I clicked the AMP link for a WSJ article (from HN web link, obviously), and it displayed instantly. Very un-modern web.

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Fine. But the point is the WSJ should be looking at improving their site instead of using google's offering here. It's laziness otherwise.

AMP gives WSJ an incentive to serve a faster version. Why would they spend money improving their site - especially a big name like WSJ? Plus, from what I've heard from developers working at new sites, "our pages are faster and use less data" is a hard sell to the people in charge, who are more interested in integrating yet another ad platform.

Exactly this. the AMP badge is a visual indicator that says "we're not going to waste time your time with a slow loading webpage, so click this link over one that doesn't have the AMP badge", which incentivizes faster webpages in a way that wasn't available previously.

most clicks go to sites that are on the top of the search results, therefore prioritizing placement due to pageloading speed should be enough of an incentive to most sites. The AMP badge pretends to be an incentive in this way, but the purpose is to extend google lock in.

"Why would they spend money improving their site - especially a big name like WSJ?"

Wait, what!? They have EVERY incentive to make sure they provide a quality product.

What would that be, out of curiosity? Not asking rhetorically. I would just assume the exact opposite -- they have every incentive to provide a monetized, just passable enough to be consumable experience. The content (and ostensibly the design) is the product, not the load time. Performance seems low on the list.

It's easy to armchair quarterback and say that. But the reasons and incentives behind web page bloat are complicated, and saying "Just make your page load faster! Just get rid of the ads and trackers!" is about as useful as abstinence-only sex ed. AMP is theoretically a way to have your cake and eat it too: all of the revenue from these ads and trackers, without the bloat. And it's at least somewhat open, compared to Apple News and Facebook Articles. It's not hard to see why publishers would gladly jump on board.

You're quoting things ... that I did not say.

The WSJ is a large site that gets lots of traffic. I assume they have a competent web team, which knows that long load times on mobile suck and knows how to do performance optimization to some degree. I am willing to bet that whatever low-hanging fruit there was to improve their PLT has already been plucked, and the remaining slowness is the complicated stuff I mentioned earlier.

That's why I think statements like your original comment are unhelpfully reductionist, and my paraphrasing of them was not misleading.

Or..... they could just get rid of the bloat. I'm sorry that so many sites suck at building web-pages, but that's not really my problem. I have no problem un-blocking sites that are respectful, and I often do, but pretending like this is a good thing for users is just silly.

> all of the revenue from these ads and trackers, without the bloat.

That is impossible. AMP is just forcing some changes and using better tech architecture for the rest. There are already slow AMP pages because of all the re-added plugins, trackers, media and ads.

Other sites could easily work on better tech delivery to improve performance without AMP, which now only decreases the amount of resources/time they have to work on their own site.

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