As a user, I will absolutely say I love AMP. AMP pages load incredibly fast with much less bullshit.
The real problem is that AMP isn't necessary. Google created AMP and is encouraging (nearly forcing it) it in a very hamfisted way because web developers couldn't figure out how to make responsive, fast-loading web pages without a huge company like Google spelling it out for them with a framework.
Now, obviously to power users like the typical HN user, AMP is evil because it's just Google taking over more of the web.
But understand that to your typical mobile user, AMP is a godsend because of how fast it is. They don't care that the URL shows Google instead of whatever page they think they're on.
With AMP, the little badge (the verification), serves as a constraint for developers, but mostly for business stakeholders. The conversation of "I can't do that, because it's simply not compatible with AMP" is way easier than "I can't do that, because it will make the page slow".
If anyone's word should NOT be taken as gospel for UI or branding, it's Google's.
Thank goodness menus for Office still existed on the Mac.
You can view the full URL in safari for iOS by tapping the URL bar. In Safari for Mac, you can modify your preferences to always show the full URL. Definitely not ideal, but also not anticompetitive in the same vein as AMP
A while back on one of the AMP discussions here, someone from Google weighed in. They said the data was clear: users not only accept it, they love AMP.
I asked how they knew that, because if it was, say, just tracking how many people tried the 2-3 tap process to get to the original URL compared to how many people just engaged whatever you showed them, then the data might be showing you something else (and in fact, I wasn't clear how you'd get from accept to love in any other way than a focus group or survey).
No response. Not clear if that's because revealing data would run afoul of internal confidential disclosure, or because this basically hadn't been thought through.
> Apple for refusing to change the URL bar like Google does on Android.
Apple has its own problems with the URL bar -- they keep the domain but drop the rest of the URL. Not as bad as replacing the domain, but not great.