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Ask HN: Does AMP only work on Google infrastructure?

6 points by holaboyperu ↗ HN
We are having a debate about AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages), I was wondering since AMP is an open source project. If you can run it on a different CDN network? Or this a way for Google to control the internet?

10 comments

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PaulHoule
It is a way for Google to control the internet.
centdev
It's a way to control the experience.
holaboyperu
I feel like someone needs to take control of the experience, since publishing platforms are so garbage right now.
1123581321
Yes, anyone can serve AMP and use the JavaScript, which is open source. Any search engine or social network can choose to parse and link to or cache AMP since it is findable in the head tag of non-AMP pages.

Google is driving development, but the entire thing is open source and shouldn't be confused with Google's particular implementation of caching and linking.

That said, one goal of AMP is to serve more ads by making mobile pages load faster, and by making ads less disruptive to slow growth of ad block sue on mobile.

Someone1234
That isn't what AMP's own docs say. They say a core part of AMP is delivery via Google's CDN:

https://www.ampproject.org/docs/get_started/about-amp.html

> AMP is a way to build web pages for static content that render fast. AMP in action consists of three different parts:

> - AMP HTML

> - AMP JS

> - Google AMP Cache

There's no supported way to use a non-Google AMP Cache.

1123581321
There's currently not a non-Google AMP cache, but anyone can build one. All the tools currently exist and are licensed to allow it under Apache 2.0 https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml

https://www.ampproject.org/docs/support/faqs.html#how-do-acc...

"Google has stated that it will provide a cache that can be used by anyone at no cost, and all AMPs will be cached by Google’s cache. Other companies may build their own cache as well."

I suggest reading through more of the information Google provides.

Someone1234
As far as I know, it only works on Google's infrastructure.

AMP is dead on arrival. It is just a pointless subset of open technologies which are delivered via Google's products and CDN. It won't likely ever be supported by third party platforms unless Google abuses its search monopoly to redirect pages to their AMP equivalent.

One of AMP's upcoming features on its roadmap is ad support[0]. I think that's all you really need to know, when a core part of AMP is adding adverts to your new faster web, you know it is just a Google plant.

[0] https://www.ampproject.org/roadmap/

centdev
Google has publicly stated that AMP versions of content will appear higher than non AMP pages in search results. This is not a secret. Ad support has already been a feature as of the last few months.
pixelmonkey
The Google AMP CDN is provided as a "convenience" to publishers, but publishers can ask Google to link instead to their own CDN. I think because the project is early, right now this can only be done via a manual request to Google. But it's going to be required downstream for publishers to synchronize their visitor data appropriately, recognize subscribers, and serve ads.

(disclosure: my company, Parse.ly, is an analytics launch partner for AMP.)

centdev
AMP is no different than Facebook IA. Both are designed to make pages load faster in so much it really benefits the platform it's on. You can load AMP pages directly and the framework itself relies on only rendering elements when needed. While the number of 3rd party embeds (for example) is limited, it is growing. Outside of keeping the wall garden up, there are obvious user benefits though it's too early.