... until something that you are required to know (that was sent in the AMP part of the email) is not in the plaintext version of the email. Happened many times with HTML, and now there is another layer where that will happen.

Is people or the communication what stops working, and then the involved system, not a piece of software by itself.

"text email is not supported, please click https://amp.blabla.com/$TRACKING_URL to read this message" is already a thing I see in text/plain from commercial email all the time.

Yep. And there's no way I'm clicking on that link. When I get one of these and think it's an email I actually need, I just tell the sender that their email is unreadable to me and they should resend it as text.

Or worse: an empty plaintext

That's what I got the other day when registering to Bethesda.net: the plaintext part of the email simply said "none".

Many html mail senders just use plaintext like this:

"Please view the HTML version of the e-mail"

Which is annoying, because I have a preference set for plain text if it is included. If a sender doesn't have a plaintext alternative, they should not include any of this garbage plaintext, that just confuses the preference logic in MUA.

Anyway, it shows that we may start seeing:

<p>You need AMP supporting MUA.</p>

as a html "alternative".

Yeah, but messing with email is scary. Email is still an open platform and if Google gets complete control of it then there is no open platform that people actually use.

Google isn't the only one implementing AMP for email, nor are they the sole controller of what AMP implementations look like. It's an open spec. Yahoo, Outlook, and Mail.ru support it.

Unfortunately "HTML + JS" based is no longer open. Commercially competitive web browsers are absent on open (not Apple) platforms which leaves the Chrome + Firefox duopoly. Somehow Google will help Firefox stumble along since it will keep them out of trouble with the antitrust courts.

> Email is still an open platform

Open in what sense? For example, there's no open standard (to the best of my knowledge) for the HTML used in emails right now and different email clients render HTML in emails differently.

On the other hand, the protocol itself is standardized, but AMP is not working on protocol level.

AMP including AMP for email is governed by a multi-company Technical Steering Committee as well as Advisory Committee since last year. https://blog.amp.dev/2019/03/06/encouraging-more-voices-in-a...

AMP for email has support by Outlook, Yahoo, and Mail.ru, so it very much isn't under Google's control.

Looking at their technical steering committee, 3 out of 7 members are from Google, with only one from a company of what I would consider equivalent pull (Microsoft).

https://github.com/ampproject/meta-tsc

I would hardly consider Yahoo to be a leader in anything at this point, not sure about mail.ru. From an outsider's perspective AMP looks Google controlled.

It looks like from your comment history you are part of Google's AMP team. It would be nice to disclose that.

> I would hardly consider Yahoo to be a leader in anything at this point, not sure about mail.ru.

mail.ru is owned by the same mafia group, that controls majority of Russian internet. They are either very stupid or want the same thing as Google (to destroy email as we know it). It is probably both.

Participation of mail.ru implies, that Russian mail providers won't ban Google in retaliation for this crap (neither on SMTP level nor via country-wide firewall).

Yahoo is a BIG email client.

The TSC requires majority consensus. Google does not have a majority.

Google’s three plus any one other member does, though.

Yes, but you know, that isn't Google controlling it and these are all member from major internet companies that won't take part in such a "conspiracy".

Can you remind us again how AMP for email came to be?

I remember you talking about how transparent the process is, but, alas, you never described it. And to quote another member of the discussions back then, anyone raising concerns:

> were closed or locked, and the head of AMP blocked us.

You being the head of AMP, of course.

You shouldn't comment unless you disclose that your affiliation with AMP team.

I don't find that argument even a little persuasive. Google is the Big Dog there.

Why does Google have three members then?

Because we do the majority of the work. The governance body size will, however, expand with further non-Google members. So, the hypothetical "you just have to convince only one" is becoming less of an issue over time.

^ cramforce works for Google on AMP.

Of course it's always the benevolent Google ramming down their network down our throats. How would AMP bans work? You can't even read any email in any client?

Are you going to comment on your membership to the google AMP team?

You yourself stated to us that Gmail team would implement AMP4Email as they wished. Did Outlook or Yahoo or Mail.ru have a choice in just telling you not to deploy AMP4Email? Or did you tell them Gmail was doing it no matter what, and ask if they wanted to not lose compatibility with 2/3rds of all email accounts on the Internet?

Suggesting any part of AMP is open still feels very disingenuous when you recognize the monopoly position of the company spearheading it.

> AMP including AMP for email is governed by a multi-company Technical Steering Committee as well as Advisory Committee since last year

...which means nearly nothing.

> You have the classic "plantext" version and "html" version in emails today.

Not often enough. These days, people who are rude enough to send HTML emails are also rude enough not to include a plain-text version of the email.

I don't expect AMP to be any different.

The only representation I would be happy to see added/adopted is markdown.