The journalist David Pierce has written a piece about the birth and (almost) death of Google's AMP. Regular readers know I have been a vocal critic of AMP even when I was serving on its advisory committee. Nowadays, well, I can't remember when I last saw an AMP page (yay Firefox!) and I've never had a client ask me to develop an AMP site. Last year, I had a long chat with David about my thoughts on AMP. I'm grateful that he left out some of my more splenetic comments - but I'm rather pleased …
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As part of its continuing quest to alienate all its long-time users provide a better user experience to everyone, Reddit recently announced a slew of changes. Buried in amongst all the hullabaloo from whinging ungrateful brats thoughtful comments from people with justifiable concerns, was this snippet from a Reddit employee: An Improved Web Experience - Reddit Long time readers will remember that I resigned from the Google AMP Advisory Committee having been a long time critic of the…
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As per the AMP AC charter, I have resigned with immediate effect. As I was a non-corporate representative, I will not be nominating a replacement. I have loved working with the AC. They are a team of brilliant individuals who are all committed to trying to make AMP better, and I'm sorry to leave them. I've been a member of the AC for a little over two years and now is the time to step away and let a wider variety of people work on the committee. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I am…
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I don't like AMP. I think that Google's Accelerated Mobile Pages are a bad idea, poorly executed, and almost-certainly anti-competitive. So, I decided to join the AC (Advisory Committee) for AMP. I don't want them surrounded with sycophants and yes-men. A few weeks ago, a bunch of the AC met in London for our first physical meeting after several exploratory video calls. These are my impressions and highlights of the meeting. You should also read the official minutes to get a more rounded…
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It's fun to grumble about a product. Sending snarky tweets, writing ranty blog-posts for those sweet HackerNews page-views, and generally complaining about how crap something is. Admit it, you do it too! I do it too often. The thing is, that's the easy way out. Much harder is engaging in constructive dialogue, submitting decently detailed issues, and crafting useful pull requests. So, I'm going to try something new. The AMP Project have asked me to join their Advisory Committee. To be…
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AMP is Google's attempt to re-fight the transcoding wars of the early 2000s. It is actively dangerous to the web ecosystem, helps disseminate propaganda, and is disliked by many users. If, like me, you made the mistake of trying out AMP on your website - you're in a tricky position if you try to remove it. Google doesn't like anything leaving its clutches. After a few weeks of AMP, I decided that it wasn't suitable for me. So I uninstalled the WordPress plugin. That's when the problems…
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