Thread by @lukestevens

I've been thinking about implications of Google's AMP ambitions for web standards, and can't shake the This Is Getting Worse feeling.

So, time for some AMP GAME THEORY.

j/k but seriously here are my thoughts on AMP. 1/?

For background, smart people with similar misgivings have been writing critically about AMP, e.g.:
@beep: ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/amplifie…
@tkadlec: timkadlec.com/remembers/2018…
@adactio: adactio.com/journal/13035
@gruber: daringfireball.net/linked/2017/05…

With the announcement of AMP stories, AMP for email, and just-build-your-whole-site-in-AMP, it's clear that these concerns are being realised.

AMP is now a Google-driven metaplatform that spans the SERPs, web & email.

Google forked the web.

Why? To compete with Facebook. Most of what AMP offers are me-too FB/IG features. Instant Pages, Stories, Carousels...

It's clear G thinks the properties it controls (Google.com, Gmail.com) need feature parity with FB's platforms: FB, IG, Messenger.

Reminds me of ex-Googler Steve Yegge's post: "[Google now] play the dangerous but easier game of using competitor activity as a proxy for what customers really need [...] They are stuck in me-too mode."
medium.com/@steve.yegge/w…

Ie: FB has it, customers must want it, we need it.

What does this mean for web standards?

Google is now using the letter of web standards to flagrantly violate the spirit of web standards: using its corporate dominance to achieve its corporate ends.

I'm not sure if AMP started with this intention or not, but it doesn't matter.

We've been here before with the web standards movement (webstandards.org). We have standards bodies for a reason: what's good for one corporation's short term competitive interests isn't necessarily good for the web's long term health.

It's clear that this is a lesson we'll need to re-learn again and again.

But it's worth acknowledging the way Google is hiding its blatant corporate interests behind its tech *and* its engineers is just gross.

Google's VPs were smart enough to dress up the initiative with enough buzzwords (neutral branding, "open source" etc) *and* people who genuinely care about the web.

This is ingenious because they can enlist their employee's passion for the web as well as *volunteers* to help with the technical implementation of their corporate strategy.

Get it? Volunteers helping implement the Google Web Fork (GWF?) so Google can chase Facebook.

G R O S S

Imagine if Microsoft implemented Microsoft Web Fork in the 90s/00s (they tried). Not ok then, not ok now.

Why? The web wasn't MS's then, & it's not Google's to re-implement now.

Who's looking after ActiveX content? Flash? Java?

AMP is going to be the mess we get to clean up.

Sure, AMP made a sorta-kinda sense when they wanted faster pages on mobile, even if they had to break urls, accessibility, native scrolling to get there (~ugh~).

But autoplay video and music in Stories? JavaScript in your email? Just gross. That's not making anything faster.

Problem is, appeals to "The AMP team" seem futile, because the AMP team's domain *is purely technical implementation*.

It's the VP's that are pulling the strings here (presumably Dave Besbris - @tweetbez).

But all we can do is appeal to the engineers involved.

So, @cramforce & @AMPhtml team, you have some of the most lucrative skills on the planet, please reconsider what you’re using them for.

The web isn't yours to remake, and the tools you’re providing your management with are too dangerous for the web you intend to help.

Whatever AMP started as, you’re now riding the bull of corporate self interest in the web standards china shop, and once you’ve moved on to another job & G's corporate goals change, we’re the ones who will be left to clean it up.

Don't be a kinder, gentler Microsoft. Reconsider.

Addendum: I've been attempting to get answers to the very serious questions that exist about AMP from AMP engineers like @cramforce. I've started a thread here: github.com/ampproject/amp… which references the discussion to date.

(May be of interest @beep @adactio @tkadlec ✌🏻)

For anyone who comes across this, you can read @cramforce's full response here: github.com/ampproject/amp…

Today I'm asking more questions about the @AMPhtml project, this time regarding the conflicts of interest at the heart of AMP: github.com/ampproject/amp…

Story of a former Google engineer highlights why forking web w/@AMPhtml is so dangerous:
❌ Perverse incentives where employees "optimize for promotion"
❌ Opaque management w/shifting priorities
❌ Myopic, metric-based focus on what's good *for Google*
mtlynch.io/why-i-quit-goo…

For y’all discovering this thread (hi!) be sure to catch up on more recent developments here:

https://twitter.com/lukestevens/status/971899066408816641

Been thinking about @AMPhtml in light of Chrome + ad blocking, & Android + third parties. I eventually realised it's all the same playbook:

Create. Open. Control.

That's it. That's the playbook. It's G's version of "embrace, extend, extinguish". It works something like this...

1. Pour resources in & use existing leverage to create platform
2. Open it up to encourage max distribution. Use "open source" as fig leaf so it's palatable to other orgs
3. Retain control w/outsized resources (staff, platforms, apps)

Control your own destiny, the Google way. 🤷🏻‍♂️