I'm pretty sure non tech users don't even know what AMP is for.

They don't have to though. If there's a symbol and sites with that symbol are faster, they'll learn to look for the symbol, perhaps not even consciously.

But obviously this is only the case if they are faster. If people start saying "we don't like this AMP thing, we'll make our pages fast on our own" then it won't be a symbol associated with things being faster, it will just be "some irrelevant google thing". But if people notice that everytime they click on one of those amp things it loads fast and all other stuff loads slow they'll of course remember that.

This is fallacious as you're not differentiating between "my site" and "all sites".

What you're suggesting is not a matter of me making my website faster than AMP in isolation. You're talking about every non-AMP site in the world banding together and collectively bringing up the average speed of an internet webpage to be faster than an AMP page.

Without that, there's nothing to make my one faster-than-AMP site stand out from the rest of the slow non-AMP web in Google search results.

>They don't have to though. If there's a symbol and sites with that symbol are faster, they'll learn to look for the symbol, perhaps not even consciously.

Totally disagree. I didn't know what AMP is and I keep seeing it. I avoided it thinking it was yet-another Google adware property like DoubleClick, another cleverly named way to trick users.

For the vast majority of users on 4G connections, AMP loads aren't that much faster (When you download 8MB/sec on 4G, a 2MB page is just not a deal breaker) and I doubt that very many users at all in America are noticing that dramatic of difference on their devices, enough to subconsciously learn to like it.

Bandwidth is often not the limiting factor on mobile networks. AMP reduces the number of TCP connections your browser has to open (each of which requires 2 RTTs, and many of which will have HTTPS running over them which requires another one or two RTTs).

Take all those connections and introduce a 1-5% packet loss rate, and suddenly there's a very good chance that any given "page load" (really dozens of requests) takes perceptually "forever". That is what AMP helps with.

I'm pretty sure Google has extensively tested the CTR's of SERP pages with and without the AMP logo. There's absolutely no way they would have implemented it if it resulted in a lower click-through rate. That would run counter to their own stated goals with AMP.

Google tests and re-tests the crap out of things like this.

> Totally disagree. I didn't know what AMP is and I keep seeing it. I avoided it thinking it was yet-another Google adware property like DoubleClick, another cleverly named way to trick users.

But when you're rewarded by a quick page load for the first time, and the second time, you'll start clicking it more because you know what reward to expect.

They'll know soon enough that the AMP sites load faster. Even if they don't know what the AMP actually means. Likely they'll think AMP is this big, huge site that just has faster content.

Google also prioritizes AMP content over regular content in their news ticker/strip.

This makes a significant difference in traffic.

It would be great if Google could set some minimum standards regarding average page load times (which they track, check Webmaster Tools) that you could meet and get the same quick loading icon in SERPs. My site loads very quickly, but I feel pressure to go AMP because of the icon and ranking increase.