Link tags: proprietary

Google AMP: how Google tried to fix the web by taking it over - The Verge

AMP succeeded spectacularly. Then it failed. And to anyone looking for a reason not to trust the biggest company on the internet, AMP’s story contains all the evidence you’ll ever need.

This is a really good oral history of how AMP soured Google’s reputation.

Full disclosure: I’m briefly cited:

“When it suited them, it was open-source,” says Jeremy Keith, a web developer and a former member of AMP’s advisory council. “But whenever there were any questions about direction and control… it was Google’s.”

As an aside, this article contains a perfect description of the company cultures of Facebook, Apple, and Google:

“You meet with a Facebook person and you see in their eyes they’re psychotic,” says one media executive who’s dealt with all the major platforms. “The Apple person kind of listens but then does what it wants to do. The Google person honestly thinks what they’re doing is the best thing.”

Spot. On.

The Proprietary Syndication Formats - Chris Coyier

Guess which format is going to outlast all these proprietary syndication formats. I’d say RSS, which I believe to be true, but really, it’s HTML.

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog [EN]: More options to help websites preview their content on Google Search

Google’s pissing over HTML again, but for once, it’s not by making up rel values:

A new way to help limit which part of a page is eligible to be shown as a snippet is the “data-nosnippet” HTML attribute on span, div, and section elements.

This is a direct contradiction of how data-* attributes are intended to be used:

…these attributes are intended for use by the site’s own scripts, and are not a generic extension mechanism for publicly-usable metadata.

On AMP for Email by Jason Rodriguez

Philosophically, I’m completely against Google’s AMP project and AMP for Email, too. I will always side with the open web and the standards that power it, and AMP is actively working against both. I’m all-in on a faster web for everyone, but I just can’t get behind Google’s self-serving method for providing that faster web.

Transparency and the AMP Project · Issue #13597 · ampproject/amphtml

Luke Stevens is trying to get untangle the very mixed signals being sent from different parts of Google around AMP’s goals. The response he got—before getting shut down—is very telling in its hubris and arrogance.

I believe the people working on the AMP format are well-intentioned, but I also believe they have conflated the best interests of Google with the best interests of the web.

AMP letter

I signed this open letter.

We are a community of individuals who have a significant interest in the development and health of the World Wide Web (“the Web”), and we are deeply concerned about Accelerated Mobile Pages (“AMP”), a Google project that purportedly seeks to improve the user experience of the Web.

Improving URLs for AMP pages – Accelerated Mobile Pages Project

Good news! Google will graciously allow non-Google-hosted AMP pages to get the AMP blessing in search results.

Bad news! It requires publishers to package up their AMP pages in a new packaging format that browsers don’t support yet.

Careful Now | CSS-Tricks

Even more concerning than browser-specific websites is seeing browsers ship non-standardized features just because they want them, not behind any vendor prefix or flag. There was a time when web developers would have got out the pitchforks if a browser was doing this, but I sense some complacency seeping in.

Rated zero. — Ethan Marcotte

Ethan points out the tension between net neutrality and AMP:

The more I’ve thought about it, I think there’s a strong, clear line between ISPs choosing specific kinds of content to prioritize, and projects like Google’s Accelerated Mobile Project. And apparently, so does the FCC chair: companies like Google, Facebook, or Apple are choosing which URLs get delivered as quickly as possible. But rather than subsidizing that access through paid sponsorships, these companies are prioritizing pages republished through their proprietary channels, using their proprietary document formats.

Removing the White Bars in Safari on iPhone X

You could add a bunch of proprietary CSS that Apple just pulled out of their ass.

Or you could make sure to set a background colour on your body element.

I recommend the latter. Because reasons.

Rise of the meta-platforms and the new ‘web browser’ - Tales of a Developer Advocate

Paul compares publishing on the web to publish on proprietary platforms, and concludes that things aren’t looking great right now.

Performance is the number one selling point for each of these new content platforms.

Is Google dumping open standards for open wallets?

Google’s track record is not looking good. There seems to be a modus operandi of bait-and-switch: start with open technologies (XMPP, CalDav, RSS) and then once they’ve amassed a big enough user base, ditch the standards.