Cake or death: AMP and the worrying power dynamics of the web(trib.tv)
trib.tv
Cake or death: AMP and the worrying power dynamics of the web
https://trib.tv/2019/05/28/cake-or-death-amp-and-the-worrying-power-dynamics-of-the-web/
7 comments
We didn't vote with our feet regarding Facebook.
Every startup founder defected and surrendered to Facebook in favor of more pageviews.
It's like the prisoners dilemma only with startups and instead of going to prison you have to use Facebook.
Every startup founder defected and surrendered to Facebook in favor of more pageviews.
It's like the prisoners dilemma only with startups and instead of going to prison you have to use Facebook.
> We didn't vote with our feet regarding Facebook.
Some of us did.
Some of us did.
The visibility of non paid posts on Facebook is a fraction of what it used to be. When it was high, it made sense that companies built their businesses around it. Those companies, at best, are hobbling along, like Zynga or Buzzfeed, or at worst, dead, like most of them.
What matters a lot right now is something else: the direct timeline accurate and somewhat algorithm free, communication channels companies have with their customers (and you have with your friends.) That is email and messaging.
We should be paying a lot closer attention and giving greater caution to Gmail, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. Particularly Gmail.
What matters a lot right now is something else: the direct timeline accurate and somewhat algorithm free, communication channels companies have with their customers (and you have with your friends.) That is email and messaging.
We should be paying a lot closer attention and giving greater caution to Gmail, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. Particularly Gmail.
> We should be paying a lot closer attention and giving greater caution to Gmail, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. Particularly Gmail.
I agree. And I voted with my feet on those as well.
I agree. And I voted with my feet on those as well.
It wouldn't matter. It's the publishers that are hurt the most (many of them did try to fight back)
Yes that's why I am voting with my feet by implementing amp in my site.
> They don't offer an amp version of their search results.
That's nonsensical. The whole point of AMP is to be able to safely prerender third party content. The search results page is first party.
That's nonsensical. The whole point of AMP is to be able to safely prerender third party content. The search results page is first party.
First party to who?
What if reddit wants to pre-render some google search result page when people submit a link to one?
Wouldn’t reddit then be the first party, and google the third party?
Why should google be considered to have the right to be prior to reddit?
(Reddit here is just an example. My point isn’t about reddit.)
What if reddit wants to pre-render some google search result page when people submit a link to one?
Wouldn’t reddit then be the first party, and google the third party?
Why should google be considered to have the right to be prior to reddit?
(Reddit here is just an example. My point isn’t about reddit.)
> What if reddit wants to pre-render some google search result page when people submit a link to one?
Google search results pages are personalized, so they cannot safely be prerendered.
Even if Google had some reason to prerender unpersonalized results, Reddit would first need to implement an AMP cache before it would make sense for Google to optimize for it.
Google search results pages are personalized, so they cannot safely be prerendered.
Even if Google had some reason to prerender unpersonalized results, Reddit would first need to implement an AMP cache before it would make sense for Google to optimize for it.
Has anyone noticed that since a few weeks mobile Chrome shows a really curious behavior?
On a normal webpage:
- I scroll down -> address bar is hidden.
- I scroll up a bit and then down again -> address bar is shown
On any AMP page:
- I scroll down a bit -> address bar is hidden
- and then I can scroll in any direction I want and the address bar never appears unless I scroll to the very top
For me that feels like Google wants to keep me inside the AMP page and makes it harder to navigate to a normal page.
On a normal webpage:
- I scroll down -> address bar is hidden.
- I scroll up a bit and then down again -> address bar is shown
On any AMP page:
- I scroll down a bit -> address bar is hidden
- and then I can scroll in any direction I want and the address bar never appears unless I scroll to the very top
For me that feels like Google wants to keep me inside the AMP page and makes it harder to navigate to a normal page.
Surfing the web via google results has become a pain, and I try to avoid it as much as possible now.
AMP pages enclose the page you visit within the html of google. So from the browsers perspective it is styling a box, not a scrolling body of text. iOS has similar weird behavior in Safari, and it’s pretty annoying.
I noticed this as well. I couldn't think of a benign or accidental explanation for it.
I just tested an AMP page in mobile Chrome, and I'm not seeing the behavior you described. Once I scroll up again, the address bar reappears.
Example: https://photos.app.goo.gl/a8A3WukpMiFPMBaNA
(Disclosure: I work for Google)
Example: https://photos.app.goo.gl/a8A3WukpMiFPMBaNA
(Disclosure: I work for Google)
Thx for the reply! I did some more investigation and I can reproduce it the following way:
- go to https://news.google.com and scroll down until the address bar is hidden
- click on any of the AMP links
- the AMP links loads and the address bar is still hidden
- scroll around the page. The address bar only re-appears if I scroll to the very top, otherwise it stays hidden
I use Chrome 74.0.3729.157 on Android 7
- go to https://news.google.com and scroll down until the address bar is hidden
- click on any of the AMP links
- the AMP links loads and the address bar is still hidden
- scroll around the page. The address bar only re-appears if I scroll to the very top, otherwise it stays hidden
I use Chrome 74.0.3729.157 on Android 7
Thanks! I see what's happening now: news.google.com is loading AMP links in a width=100% height=100% iframe. This means your scrolling affects the iframe and not the page. Chrome, however, uses scrolling of the top level page to determine whether the address bar should hide/show. So this gives two weird things:
* If you click on an AMP link without scrolling down enough to hide the URL bar, the URL bar remains even as you scroll through the AMP article.
* If you click on an AMP link after scrolling down enough to hide the URL bar (the case you saw), the URL bar stays hidden even if you scroll back up (unless you scroll all the way to the top, at which point you're scrolling the outer page).
I agree this is bad UX, and it happens because the Google News site is loading AMP pages in an iframe. Web Packaging fixes this: https://blog.cloudflare.com/announcing-amp-real-url/
(Disclosure: I work at Google on unrelated things, speaking for myself and not the company)
* If you click on an AMP link without scrolling down enough to hide the URL bar, the URL bar remains even as you scroll through the AMP article.
* If you click on an AMP link after scrolling down enough to hide the URL bar (the case you saw), the URL bar stays hidden even if you scroll back up (unless you scroll all the way to the top, at which point you're scrolling the outer page).
I agree this is bad UX, and it happens because the Google News site is loading AMP pages in an iframe. Web Packaging fixes this: https://blog.cloudflare.com/announcing-amp-real-url/
(Disclosure: I work at Google on unrelated things, speaking for myself and not the company)
I was really expecting more then a “Works on my machine” from a google employee ;)
So there's about four things going on here which are somewhat conflated, but I definitely agree with the approach of analysing this by power dynamics.
1) Link snippets. In the old days, there was syndicated news: org A could pay org B for the right to print bits of B's coverage. From this point of view, Google search looks like a syndication that they've not opted into and isn't paying. Of course, when they tried fighting back (some organisations in Spain and Germany, I think), they got removed from search results and ended up worse off. This is the view driving the "link tax" proposals in the EU.
2) "Snippets" that are in fact the whole article: both AMP and the proposed "web packages". In this case, Google end up publishing the whole article from their domain. The paper gets .. what exactly?
3) The bad recommendation problem: "This equates a responsible, expensively produced, extensively researched, professional newsgatherer with some guy who thinks the earth is flat for no reason other than that it ‘kinda feels right’." See also Youtube's role in promoting flat earth, anti-vax, neo-nazi, etc viewpoints.
4) AMP etc. vs paywalls: "In AMP, the support for paywalls is based on a recommendation that the premium content be included in the source of the page regardless of the user’s authorisation state."
1) Link snippets. In the old days, there was syndicated news: org A could pay org B for the right to print bits of B's coverage. From this point of view, Google search looks like a syndication that they've not opted into and isn't paying. Of course, when they tried fighting back (some organisations in Spain and Germany, I think), they got removed from search results and ended up worse off. This is the view driving the "link tax" proposals in the EU.
2) "Snippets" that are in fact the whole article: both AMP and the proposed "web packages". In this case, Google end up publishing the whole article from their domain. The paper gets .. what exactly?
3) The bad recommendation problem: "This equates a responsible, expensively produced, extensively researched, professional newsgatherer with some guy who thinks the earth is flat for no reason other than that it ‘kinda feels right’." See also Youtube's role in promoting flat earth, anti-vax, neo-nazi, etc viewpoints.
4) AMP etc. vs paywalls: "In AMP, the support for paywalls is based on a recommendation that the premium content be included in the source of the page regardless of the user’s authorisation state."
For #2, the publisher gets paid for all the ads on the amp page:
https://support.google.com/admanager/answer/6352089?hl=en
I wonder why the author considers Facebook to be a lost cause, but not Google?
Anecdotally, a lot more Facebook employees I've interacted with understand they've been at least complicit with evil and want to do better. That's at least a good Step 1.
On the other side I feel like there are far too many Googlers that have drank the vile tautology Kool-Aid that because the unofficial motto is still supposed to be "Do No Evil" that what Google is doing cannot be evil, because it is Google doing it. They haven't even reached Step 1 yet.
On the other side I feel like there are far too many Googlers that have drank the vile tautology Kool-Aid that because the unofficial motto is still supposed to be "Do No Evil" that what Google is doing cannot be evil, because it is Google doing it. They haven't even reached Step 1 yet.
Considering all the recent scandals like Maven and Dragonfly, I don't know what more they need ?!
Why is there a "Share on Google+" link? Surely Google+ is now dead.
seems like it still works to share on G Suite Google+, which is not dead.
Probably just legacy though...
Probably just legacy though...
The name of the article for the win... Izzard rules.
I can agree with the author's point that when technology like Google's AMP incentivizes the wrong things by promoting what's quick over what's slow/accurate. I can agree with many of the author's criticisms of AMP.
But I don't quite understand the author's concern about Google's push for AMP being a "monopolistic land grab" at the same time as the author's disgust that Google doesn't censor disreputable websites.
AMP is a technical solution to require technically-not-terrible sites; a reputability service is also a technical solution, but for a non-technical problem of terrible sites. Why is "cake or death" terrible for the former but not the latter? Especially since it seems like it'd be really hard to have a neutral reliability check that everyone could trust.
I feel there's a tension between "decentralised and open", and "centralised and curated". (You could have a walled garden as part of a larger decentralised web without needing control over others, though).
But I don't quite understand the author's concern about Google's push for AMP being a "monopolistic land grab" at the same time as the author's disgust that Google doesn't censor disreputable websites.
AMP is a technical solution to require technically-not-terrible sites; a reputability service is also a technical solution, but for a non-technical problem of terrible sites. Why is "cake or death" terrible for the former but not the latter? Especially since it seems like it'd be really hard to have a neutral reliability check that everyone could trust.
I feel there's a tension between "decentralised and open", and "centralised and curated". (You could have a walled garden as part of a larger decentralised web without needing control over others, though).
I think the author refers to curation not censorship, Google is trying to get the content from the publication that do actual curation and all the other content and show you what an algorithm thinks will make them more money.
> AMP is a technical solution to require technically-not-terrible sites
AMP is a technical solution to a non-technical problem. And, in my opinion, that technical solution is worse than the non-technical problem.
AMP is a technical solution to a non-technical problem. And, in my opinion, that technical solution is worse than the non-technical problem.
> a non-technical problem
In what way is safely prerendering third party pages not a technical problem?
In what way is safely prerendering third party pages not a technical problem?
The nontechnical problem is the prevalence of bad website design. AMP is not needed in order to have performant websites. The case Google makes for AMP is "web designers suck".
If we want to keep it open, we can simply keep building great websites. Real websites. Without "amp" and "portals".
Example: HN itself. No amp, much joy!
Or take a hint from Google themselves. They don't offer an amp version of their search results. And will never allow anybody to embed their site.