Google amp is a blessing on mobile, I don't give a damn't about site owners.
But aren't they the ones creating the content you are enjoying? Seems strange to care so little about them, as without them, there would be no content to enjoy.
And the net will be a better place.
How many publications do you subscribe to?
If my only two options are awful intrusive ads or no content, then I'd choose no content.
Google, please allow me to opt-out of AMP.
Aside: from a privacy perspective it creeped me the hell out once I realized what was happening.
1) Performance - Yes, it LOADS fast, but MANY pages "feel" janky, when scrolling, especially pages that allow you to load additional accords by scrolling left/right. Only the simplest pages don't "jank" on my device.
2) Scrolling - It isn't the native scroll. It seems to be a div with "overflow-scrolling" applied. Other than that feeling "off", it prevents the bottom toolbar from hiding, reducing screen real estate.
3) Sharing URLs.
4) Biggest: No way to opt-out. I'm a fan of the open web. It's why I prefer a website to a sandboxed experience you get with native apps. At least for the first click on Google SERP pages, I'm "stuck" with google.com.
One note: I get the AMP use case, and I'm sure there are users who prefer AMP pages for the performance they see. However, I'm fortunate enough to live in an area with decent mobile speed/bandwidth, and loading the original pages are rarely "slow" on my device. However, the originals all address the issues I noted above. I'll take the .5-1 second delay for the original(s), over the AMP version.
I’ve been in mobile development for about a decade, what Google did was re-invent WAP on top of HTML5, turning back the clock at least 10 years.
By also sending all non-Google traffic through the tunnel ("for improved speed!" remember when AOL included SpeedBooster Technology?) they'd control a majority of all non-search internet traffic, like AOL without the disks. And they wouldn't even have to bill you because they'd get an unlimited supply of ad data.
2) Touching tap to return to the top of a webpage is broken.
3) Searching for a word within a webpage is broken.
This is all basic functionality that I use often. And I'm sure there are other things broken about it.
Funny because I did the same and stayed with DDG even though Google has slightly better results.
AMP pages have broken controls and I frequently encountered completely broken AMP pages (no content visible). Was this the "fast loading page" experience that AMP promises?
Dear website owners who wrote this letter: yes, amp has it's downsides but the reason we have amp is that the internet as a whole failed to make fast sites. you had your chance for the previous ~30 years, and it's clear you couldn't be bothered to make speed a priority. I'm glad you're angry that AMP is eating your lunch, because maybe you'll actually start trying to compete now. But you aren't getting my sympathy.
I'd probably have a different opinion if I didn't use Adaway, which blocks ad servers by domain in /etc/hosts. When I've tried going without an adblocker, the web was not such a nice place.
Half of the reason we're in this mess is on-line advertising. The other half is that lots of companies think it's a great idea for everything to require constant data exchange with the cloud.
And now they’re trying to get a new standard feature to let them lie about the URL to make it even easier!
You know what worked well? 20+ years of the URL bar showing me the site I was trying to read without bikinis messing with it.
Also, that was added later. Originally it wasn’t there at all.
And the benefit of everybody with a mobile device that just wants their article to load quickly.
> And now they’re trying to get a new standard feature to let them lie about the URL to make it even easier
These are called "engineering tradeoffs". It's not perfect, but it's better than what we had before.
Google could allow opt out of AMP for all those who don't want it in their search results but they don't because they are trying to wall off and control a section of the web.
If AMP and others exist, there's a reason, and it might be more useful to respond to that than to respond to AMP.
That’s not a reason that matters to me at all.