If you want the details, I did write a blog post about this. https://redfin.engineering/how-to-fix-googles-amp-without-sl...

tl;dr: iframes cause all of AMP's problems, but they provide unbeatable performance, thanks to prerendering. Prerendering is faster than http://motherfuckingwebsite.com. The Web Packaging standard will allow Google to prerender sites in search results without AMP, and without violating users' privacy.

But here's the point: most people think that Google wants to host nytimes articles on google.com, to seize control of the web's traffic. They don't. They've done a bunch of work to get out of that business while preserving the performance benefits of prerendering, but nobody knows that, because they talk about it in bizarre technical jargon like today's OP AMP blog post.

Why should we trust a monopolist that -- and this is totes a coincidence! -- is pushing a standard that breaks all urls to point to them? This is the next attempt after google plus or whatever their stupid social network is/was. They're basically terrified of facebook and, instead of supporting the internet, they're trying to become fb. But in your browser.

Pretending google didn't want to steal all urls requires actively ignoring the last 10 years of google's corporate decisions.

I'm not telling you to trust them. I'm certainly not telling you to use AMP.

I'm just saying, they've done a lot of work on this Web Packaging thing, and it's a pretty good replacement for AMP. You should check it out.

It's hard to see why they'd do all of that work of replacing AMP if your theory is right and they just loooved stealing those URLs.

Because

1 - they got caught with their hands in the cookie jar

2 - the internet isn't quite as dumb as google hoped

3 - thank god for the EU & Margrethe Vestager. Maybe we can talk her into adding a zero.

ps -- that status, as near as I can tell, of the amp url fix is vaporware. Deployed yet? Nope. So let's wait to get all triumphant until their supposed solution is deployed. https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/01/09/google-finally-fixi...

How so?

The user experience they wanted to achieve (provide an Apple News and Facebook Instant Articles experience on the web) was not technically possible. They added the hacks and workarounds that is AMP + AMP Cache + News carousel prerendering to Google to create something competitive.

Now they're working with the standards bodies to remove the need for the hacks they've developed. Web Packaging (for loading and verifying a bundled website - this is the preloading part) and iFrame Promotion (for 'promoting' an iFrame to the root browsing context - this is the 'clicking the search result and having the resulting page display instantly' part) is really cool and it'll be great to have this available to everyone without the downsides that Google's current solution has (URL fucking)

Weird how the technical compromises they just had to make work out, well, wildly to their advantage. Better not piss off google or they break all links to your site!

It's not up to Google to deploy. It's up to the browser vendors to implement, and that won't happen with Apple dragging its feet on every web standard.