AMP Breaks The Open Web

A few weeks ago, I tried to AMPed up this blog. The quick and easy solution is to run Automattic’s AMP plugin. After half an hour of playing with the plugin, I deactivated it and decided not to use it because it published a separate version for AMP. Furthermore, the default design looked too generic and uninspired.

My next step was to follow the tutorial on the AMP Project website to create the basic markup. The first thing I had to do was adding an external JavaScript from Google and including some default styles. I am using Typekit to display fonts, but the document doesn’t give any example on how to do so. I tried googling, but found nothing. For images, I have to use AMP’s proprietary amp-img. For CSS, I have to use AMP’s proprietary <style amp-custom>. All CSS has to be inlined since and <link rel=”stylesheet”> is disallowed. At this point, I simply gave up. The markup is now under Google standards instead of the web standards the web community has fought so hard to maintain. For performance, giving up standard markup is simply not worth it since I have done my best too keep this site as fast as possible. In addition, I don’t want to lose control of my design.

Fortunately, I am glad that I am not alone. John Gruber and others have stepped up to call for killing Google AMP. I am with them.