You know the thing is I really like most Google things and I always have, but this whole AMP deal is annoying for several reasons. The number one most annoying/ ridiculous reason that I hate AMP is that when you "amplify" a page the content loads from Google's servers. This seems harmless, but the world wide web was built so that we could all link to different sites and publishers on the web. Essentially if everything was using AMP every link would point to Google. Now throw in the fact that Google is by far and away the largest internet advertising company in the world and you have to ask yourself if this sounds like it is good for the internet or if it is a consolidation of power.
The only good thing about the whole project is that it is supposed to make webpages load faster. But the reality is good web developers already make sites load quickly on mobile devices. We take the time to structure pages so javascript is asynchronous or loaded at the bottom of the page to avoid creating bottle necks. The crazy thing is most of my sites load well below 2 seconds and when you run them on a testing site like GT Metrix it confirms that the sites I build are screaming fast. However, if I try to run the same page on Google's page speed tool you would think my sites took 10 seconds to load with all the red on the screen. Good web developers know the Google Page Speed tool is pretty much BS and is really just a ploy to force everyone into using AMP. Also search engine professionals are keenly aware that page load speed is a SE ranking factor that is growing in importance. I would be willing to bet that Google utilizes it's own page speed tool instead of an unbiased third party tool to determine which site is "fast" enough. So even though my sites load extremely fast from all objective measures my clients will get penalized for not serving AMP pages. Google should really be ashamed of themselves for this type of behavior. Wasn't one of their mantras "don't be evil"?
Kill Google AMP before it kills the web.— Scott Gilbertson
Another pet peave is when I build websites I don't make a killing doing it, but Google is trying to force me to do more time consuming tasks. I won't get paid for these additional steps because I can't pass this cost along to my smaller clients. In the end Google could have accomplished the same goal of increasing mobile speed without doing AMP, but it seems to me that the ultimate goal is to create a new world wide web that will be named Google.
If you are interested in more articles on the subject please see the links below. If you would like to add to the list I'm providing please post a comment. If you think I'm crazy feel free to chime in as well, I've been called worse so you won't hurt my feelings.
- (Everyone who thinks AMP is BS should sign this open letter) Ampletter.org
- Article from Scott Gilbertson with quote listed above - The Register
- Post from John Gruber - Daring Fireball