To users, side effects are the same as goals. We have nothing to judge a vendor on except observed behavior.

It's the intended side-effect. For the longest time ever AMP wouldn't even acknowledge it's a problem (oh, we just provide the standard, it's the browsers' fault).

Then Google relented and provided a non-solution in the form of an obscure bar on top of AMP pages (in which the link to the original page is deliberately designed to not look like a link).

The signed exchanges is a bone thrown towards standards committees after all the damage has already been done.

And the "solution" has been directly called by Mozilla harmful, they are not going to implement it. Safari shares Mozilla's concern.

The parent mentioned that: "as they can't fix [the URL appearance] without losing out on tracking, they're trying to change what the URL means."

Actually, that so-called "fix" obscures the actual Google URL where the content is served from.

Yes, and that fix is worse than the original problem.

Cloudflare has an option for native AMP urls, at your own domain, as well.

Is any site using this? It requires a special certificate and signing your content (which admittedly Cloudflare will take care of for you) but even then it’s only for Chrome and Firefox and Apple have said they won’t support it. Over a year after announcing it I’ve yet to find a single site that does this.