> Let me package that up for you – Google, the most dominant search engine globally – used that dominant market position to encourage publishers to adopt technology so that Google could store and serve publisher’s content on Google’s domain.
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.
>how could regulators and authorities let this happen
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.
But also a few times on this site in the past few years when someone complained about AMP, technical people on HN would also say that Google was doing the right thing to make mobile pages more responsive.
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.
> 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.
All they needed to do, in my opinion was to let it be known that sites that were optimised for mobile accessibility and fast loading would prioritised in mobile search result placement, above slow, inaccessible sites.
Thats the point im making. It took leveraging search to offer premium real estate for AMP pages to force adoption. It was a compelling value prop for top publishers. Enough to boil the ocean. However, simply asking the ecosystem to build faster pages.. isn’t going to work.
I am a tech person and I have only maintained AMP is a blight. Anyone of us, with even a smidge of business sense could see what they were doing/going to do for quite some time. The people who argued for its benefits very much lacked perspective (or didn't care) outside of the immediate technical effects of speeding up mobile sites. People in tech are not particularly homogeneous in their opinions on a lot of these things and you probably saw a small slice of the various opinions.
Yeah, I saw those, and I didn't recognize any of the people, but their arguments never made sense to me, and it ended up really damaging my opinion of Google even more. What other bad things has Google done, that other people have defended, that I silently accepted without thinking it all the way through?
For as much as I hate Amp it's way better than what came before it. Especially for ad heavy sites that typically rank high in Google searches for random stuff. The only time for me it's not an improvement is for reddit where it is a huge annoyance.
Google could have simply made page weight a more important factor in the ranking algorithm if that was their goal.
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?
AMP allows tech people at non-tech companies to push back against all the "just one tiny little thing it won't effect load speed much" requests.
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.
Every single one of those things could be done by google providing a simple webpage analysis tool that said "These features are lowing your score in search rank!"
And who, pray tell, serves all those annoying ads and makes those ad-heavy sites rank high in searches, thus controlling the nudges that push people onto AMP? Are you seeing the problem yet?
I’m curious why you assume it’s accident or inaction. If I wanted to surveil Internet traffic with all five of my eyes, what better way would there be then rehosting all the content so people had to connect directly to me?
It’s simply very difficult to regulate the internet, laws are an extremely blunt tool and while I agree that more could have been done, I’m also convinced that regulation would have stifled innovation.
The AMP mess is not the death knell of the open internet, perhaps the sick idea of a rotting company
> 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.
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.
Your answer is technically correct (I know, I know, it's the best kind of correct...) but the typical case is that without using the tech giants to propagate your site (search engines, social media, instant messenger services), your site is effectively banished to the dark recesses of the internet, where only your friends and the people who mistype an URL will visit.
I mean, that is pretty much the open nature of the internet. Everything was banished to the dark recesses of the internet and just your friends and family, until we had Yahoo, Altavista, Excite, Lycos, and then Google...An open internet doesn't mean everyone has equal visibility and promotion.
Easy there partner. Are you saying that it’s time to regulate a Corp if and only if grandparent commenter needs them to live? Do they do baptisms in the google analytics data lake so you can make that decision with the requisite omniscience?
Me too, without a way to turn off AMP I was forced to take drastic action. Then I adopted DDG on my main computer, after I didn't notice any bad side effects compared to Google web search.
Is AMP really that bad? There isn't annoying modals that take over the screen. No ads inject themselves into my scroll. Videos players that work and don't have two minutes of prerolls and the main content just buffers forever. I just hate it messes up the url.
Yes, I fucking hate it.
Every time I search for something on mobile and the result is something from reddit I only get to see only a part of the first post and some of the comments, to read more I have to click "read more".
Why would this ever be helpful to anyone? What purpose does it serve other than waste the users time and make him do more clicks?
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" ?
AMP versions are often inferior because AMP isn’t actually HTML. You can’t even use an <img/> tag. So you have to develop an alternate version of every page for SEO. Inevitably a lot of companies don’t have the resources to actually do that so you end up with half finished, half implemented AMP versions.
When I click a Reddit link, I expect to be logged in as myself with the ability to vote & comment directly. Instead I land on an easily cacheable page that asks me to download the Reddit app without fail.
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.
As far as I understand, when you land on an AMP page, you get the same (cached) page that everyone else gets. Which is basically a shortened version of what you would see if you were not logged in. So while it may not be AMP's fault, AMP enables/encourages the behavior.
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. If there were no AMP, I could reasonably expect to arrive at Reddit as I normally see and use it.
I don't think the behavior on the actual reddit site is any better on mobile.
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.
Other than the usual reasons why everyone hates it, the most frustrating for me is that sharing articles with others used to be super simple (copy address from browser, paste into messaging app), but now I have to hunt for the actual non-AMP URL which is impossible to find.
I block a bunch of 3rd party javascript trackers and the like. AMP degrades in a horrible way if you do this - it seems to give me multiple seconds of a completely white page, presumably for no reason other than to punish me. I closed so many amp pages assuming they were broken before realising that they do appear if you leave them long enough.
> There isn't annoying modals that take over the screen. No ads inject themselves into my scroll. Videos players that work and don't have two minutes of prerolls and the main content just buffers forever.
All of these functions are already served by my adblocker, which does not hijack the URL to do so.
There’s no method to do a modal on page load in amp. It’s a very controlled set of widgets and actions. It is so sandboxed that Gmail supports amp based emails.
Well, let me break it down for you: The US political landscape looks like this:
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.
> the second you talk about limiting big business or monopoly busting they run away
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...
> 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.
The parties have changed since whenever you last read up on this (four years ago? ten years ago?).
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.
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.
> Gop politicians (for Republicans call themselves this) don't care about deregulation anymore -- they just want to funnel money and power to the wealthy.
It almost makes one wonder if that's what deregulation was for all along....
Democrats have been very vocal and, more recently, active about bringing antitrust actions against big tech for the last 4 years now, with Senator Elizabeth Warren campaigning for President on a tech trust-busting platform.
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]
> 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.
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.
> 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
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.
I'm inclined to think democrats talking about anti trust in relation to tech firms are more looking for influence than honest-to-god anti trust.
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.
Democrats aren't a unified political party the way Republicans are, especially on issues like regulation of business. Some Dems are corporate-friendly and want contributions from lobbyists; others are social democrats who are distressed about corporate dominance. So it depends on who you're talking about: AOC and Joe Manchin aren't going to have the same perspective.
>Democrats aren't a unified political party the way Republicans are,
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.
>It's also much easier to enforce antitrust by initiating antitrust legislation.
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.
Because for everyone except techies, the domain that the content is actually served from is pretty irrelevant.
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.
Until this very minute, you mean. Google is viewed more favorably than any other company, organization, or institution in America. Only here on HN is it constantly denounced.
> Google is viewed more favorably than any other company, organization, or institution in America. Only here on HN is it constantly denounced.
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.
I mean, did you read those articles? In the first article "tech companies" generally are viewed as positively as churches and more positively than everything else, including universities! In the second one Google has a 90% favorable rating and only 4% think it has a negative impact on society.
> "tech companies" generally are viewed as positively as churches and more positively than everything else, including universities
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.
Tech literacy isn't exactly rampant. It's sad really and part of the reason we have memes like the "internet is a series of tubes" and laws like the DMCA in the US.
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.