Philosophically, I’m completely against Google’s AMP project and AMP for Email, too. I will always side with the open web and the standards that power it, and AMP is actively working against both. I’m all-in on a faster web for everyone, but I just can’t get behind Google’s self-serving method for providing that faster web.
"There are so many things that infuriate me about regular sites:
- Images not having defined heights, leading to content jumping up as I'm reading
- Ads loading and unloading, leading to the page jittering up and down erratically, making the content unreadable
- Auto-playing videos: some start playing audio, some have the audio muted but still pause any music I have playing
- Those ads that scroll up across the page (which wouldn't be a problem, but they scroll at a third of the speed that I drag them up at)
- The "Read Full Story" buttons that animate the content downwards, freezing everything for a few seconds while the dumb animation plays
- Web fonts taking an eternity to load, leaving me with no content for ten, fifteen, or more seconds
- Web fonts loading unexpectedly and causing all the text to reflow, destroying my scroll position
"
On the other hand, this nudges publishers toward an idea that's big in the IndieWeb movement: Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere (or POSSE for short). The idea is to own the canonical copy of the content on your own site but then to send that content everywhere you can. Or rather, everywhere you want to reach your readers. Facebook Instant Article? Sure, hook up the RSS feed. Apple News? Send the feed over there, too. AMP? Sure, generate an AMP page. No need to stop there—tap the new Medium API and half a dozen others as well.
Any new web standard must be easy enough to understand and implement that a developer can get something up and running in an afternoon. HTML, HTTP and RSS all adhere to these principles. So do the indieweb protocols, which is why we support them and think they are likely to succeed.
Malte Ubl
https://twitter.com/cramforce
•
Oct 7
