It's absurd, how could regulators and authorities let this happen? Let's also mention how hard and counterintuitive is getting to the original site from the amp version.
because they have been asleep at the wheel for almost two decades now, letting tech companies privatize and eat away at the open nature of the internet, so now we have to live in tech giant fiefdoms where they can determine the very form and content of everything displayed on the web because they're the ones who control every access point and standard.
Google was saying they were trying to solve a real problem, and it isn't easy (for me at least) to have known their true goals. Now if you read the the Texas anti trust suit -- and I recommend it to anyone who is interested-- it seems pretty clear that their motive for AMP was to improve their ad revenue.
It can be both. AMP legitimately sped up a lot of crappy news sites. That put pressure on non-AMP sites to get their game together. It was probably a net positive at first. But then Google abused their position.
Absolute market dominance corrupts absolutely. Even, and in spite of, efforts to the contrary from within the company.
Lobbying.
The AMP mess is not the death knell of the open internet, perhaps the sick idea of a rotting company
The minute these publishers weren't getting as much search/news traffic anymore, they would have capitulated, making their sites run faster immediately, the same way they quickly capitulated to AMP.
As proven by AMP, when Google says jump, the entire interest responds by saying "How high?"
Can anybody give me a single non-nefarious reason for why AMP was necessary instead of simply enforcing page weight/loading-speed factors via the algorithm?
Your marketing department wants another tracking script? no can do. Your exec wants a javascript "click the monkey" promo? not on the AMP site. The UX folks want parallax webGL spinning logos? Sorry AMP doesn't allow it.
It puts people who were previously not in a position where they could push back against decisions which effect load speed in a position where they can push back.
The tech team could have just as easily have said, "sorry, that would put us over our X ms page speed limit."
The fact Google spent 100X the resources of a simple algorithm update by creating AMP, tells us there were other motives behind this.
They actually did this a few years ago: https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2018/01/using-page...
Wooow slow down buddy. Nothing like that is hapening. I can still hook up my computer to the internet and start serving websites right away. Google can't do anything about that. Neither can Facebook, or any GAFAM.
However Google did change your behavior is entirely on you. You can live without them just fine. Until that is changed I can't see any need for regulation.
I stopped using Chrome as my primary browser and moved to Firefox for exactly same reason - AMP.
The failure here is more that regulation covering this stuff is very unclear. Is it anti-trust? Telecommunications?
And if it is antitrust, what is anti competitive? How is the consumer harmed? How are others being prevented from competing?
Basically you can't just say "Google bad" here. Regulators need to go from that to "Google bad, and illegal." That last thing is not clear right now
Also - has anyone ever been happy to land on an AMP page, and think, "wow, this is really useful, I'm glad I'm on this weird page, instead of the original one" ?
I tend to click on AMP results in searches because they always load so much faster.
I don't have a strong opinion either way, but I do think that the stated purpose of having an easily cacheable and loadable webpage is a good one.
Reddit is already fast, Reddit does not benefit from AMP - except by putting that "This page looks better in the app!" modal back in the face of people that have otherwise disabled it via their user settings.
If the AMP page is showing everyone the same thing, then of course I won't see Reddit with my user settings (old mobileweb, do not ask me about the app, etc), and of course trying to interact with the page will redirect me somewhere else. If I could opt out of AMP to avoid this issue, I would.
Especially in the early days I was really happy about the AMP pages, because the publishers haven't yet managed to cram so much garbage into them as they have into their regular pages. I don't need e.g. a sticky video player playing some irrelevant video just to create space for a video ad.
All of these functions are already served by my adblocker, which does not hijack the URL to do so.
Republicans want deregulation everywhere, no matter the cost, the second you talk about limiting big business or monopoly busting they run away.
Democrats on the other hand rely heavily on favors from the tech establishment to keep their agendas front and center and hide any downsides, this means letting BigTech(tm) have free reign.
Thus both parties are incentivized to look the other way. Only recently did the Republicans wake up to TOO BIG = bad; but their solutions are all terrible and thankfully were never entertained by any meaningful majority. Meanwhile the democrats are working very hard to cement the current big tech conglomerates into having control and power so you can expect more of the same.
Unless big business is de-platforming right-wing content, in which case this principle is instantly forgotten and we need regulation and monopolies need to be broken up...
Covered that here
Gop politicians (for Republicans call themselves this) don't care about deregulation anymore -- they just want to funnel money and power to the wealthy.
Dem politicians now seem very excited about breaking up Facebook and Google.
Both parties want to hurt Google and Facebook for perceived political bias. Gop politicians want this because Google and Facebook sometimes allow some left-of-center voices to occasionally penetrate their newsfeeds. Dem politicians want this because Facebook has been a vector for QAnon and other wingnut-terrorist radicalization.
It almost makes one wonder if that's what deregulation was for all along....
Is GOP, it's an acronym for Grand Old Party.
But I was just describing the current climate, the Repubs, never cared about dereg until recently when they realized that FB and Google are abusing their power, but all the GOP solutions involved draconian backwards thinking that would only make things worse.
> Both parties want to hurt Google and Facebook for perceived political bias.
Not quite, GOP wants to hurt 'em, Dems are very happy with them, and all their "dereg" is basically aimed at giving them more power.
Rather than link to those campaign promises, I'll point out that the current legislative strategy for restoring competition to the tech sector is being spearheaded by Democratic Representative David Cicilline. [0]
Additionally, Professor Tim Wu's appointment to the National Economic Council by the Biden administration speaks volumes of the urgency for antitrust action on the part of the Democratic party. [1]
[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-big-tech-antitrust/u-...
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/05/technology/tim-wu-white-h...
It's much easier to get companies to move your way if you threaten them with broad investigations into their activities. They're much more likely to behave the way you want later.
That doesn't change the real danger these companies represent to the continued freedoms and viability of society, given the current social media feedback loop and the death of journalism as a result of tech.
We're in uncharted territory.
It's also much easier to enforce antitrust by initiating antitrust legislation.
Currently, the strategy of broad investigations is yielding to multiple focused pieces of legislation spearheaded by David Cicilline (link in GP).
Sure, but I don't think thats the case.
>Currently, the strategy of broad investigations is yielding to multiple focused pieces of legislation spearheaded by David Cicilline (link in GP).
I think you have it backwards.
From what I can see David Cicilline will go after social media for pushing 'misinformation' and call for even harsher corporate censorship in the name of information security, and will likely want to alter section 230 to make it easier to punish them for algorithmic 'misinformation' rather than to push more freedom for normal people.
Don't expect more freedoms, expect more control. They aren't going after these companies in your defense, they're doing it to control them and use their power against their enemies. They'll use misinformation and election security and whatever else just as a cover for making things worse but being in control.
This is unnecessary and also incorrect comparison
>Some Dems are corporate-friendly and want contributions from lobbyists; others are social democrats who are distressed about corporate dominance.
True, but not relevant. There's a reason Warren stayed in the primaries long enough to make sure Bernie couldn't proceed - and Kamala Harris who didn't go anywhere is now Vice President. There are functional powerblocks that are making decisions, whether the party is unified or not.
>So it depends on who you're talking about: AOC and Joe Manchin aren't going to have the same perspective.
That has nothing to do with what the effective leadership and powerblocks are doing, and both can be used to push a position that does what the powerblock wants by propandazing it in their perspective.
Tech regulation is good! AOC can push it because it will protect against misinformation, protect minorities against hate, and guard against russian intrusion in elections similar to what allowed Trump to be elected. See how easy it is? It's just spin. spin is not what the actual politics going on are.
I wouldn't say Cicilline is spearheading anything. However, it's good that after 26 years as a politician, Cicilline now "is preparing to come out with 10 or more pieces of legislation targeting Big Tech companies" [0]
But, don't forget that Ciccilline went to prison after he "pleaded guilty to conspiracy, obstruction of justice and making false statements for his role in the courthouse corruption scheme" [1]
Regarding fiscal competance, Fitch Ratings also downgraded Providence's ratings, and Cicilline was accused of "hiding the scope of the city's fiscal woes through 'illusory revenues, borrowing and other tricks.'"
Cicilline may do something positive today, but there are better people to be the "face of anti-trust." I'd still be wary, due to his past criminal activities, that he isn't continuing to engage in the same practices one more time.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-big-tech-antitrust/u-...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cicilline#Controversies
This is mostly about forcing BigTech(tm) to censor more free speech and calling that legislation "breaking up big tech" it's anything but.
I will admit that Warren has been beating the monopoly busting drum for 10 years now, unfortunately she's kinda made herself irrelevant with her other policies and claims.
What's the benefit of this (except caching = faster page loads and navigation) for Google? To my knowledge, the ad revenue goes to the publisher, and any other company that wanted to serve the content under their domain could do so.
b) can they not do that on the publisher domain too, because one of the 300 trackers that every publisher embeds tends to be Google Analytics?
Tech companies were ridiculously popular until recently.
This is no longer accurate. Tech companies as a whole have seen a sharp decline in net favorability since 2015 [1]. Within the cohort of tech companies, Google is favourably views [2]. But even then, there is thin popular support for breaking it up.
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/29/americans-h...
[2] https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/2/21144680/verge-tech-survey...
Google, and tech, is still popular. It's just not ridiculously, untouchably popular.
When it comes to Teflon in politics, what matters is (a) having a vocal minority who love you and (b) not having a vocal minority who hate you. The former protect you. The latter attack. Google went from having everyone on their side, strongly, to having most people on their side and a vocal minority against. That's the difference between a Congressional investigation or DOJ complaint gaining traction and getting sniped.
Also, nitpick, universities were expressed as having a positive impact by two thirds of Democrats and one third of Republicans in 2019; the comparable numbers were 54 and 44% for tech companies. In 2010 it was 71% and 66%. You don't lose twenty percent of the country costlessly, even if people start disliking other stuff a bit more, too.