emails are packages with different representations in it. You have the classic "plantext" version and "html" version in emails today. What this is doing is adding another one to it.
Mutt, for instance, discards "html" and renders just the "plaintext" version. AMP emails would just be another part of the same email. Nothing would stop working.
... until something that you are required to know (that was sent in the AMP part of the email) is not in the plaintext version of the email. Happened many times with HTML, and now there is another layer where that will happen.
Is people or the communication what stops working, and then the involved system, not a piece of software by itself.
"text email is not supported, please click https://amp.blabla.com/$TRACKING_URL to read this message" is already a thing I see in text/plain from commercial email all the time.
Yep. And there's no way I'm clicking on that link. When I get one of these and think it's an email I actually need, I just tell the sender that their email is unreadable to me and they should resend it as text.
Many html mail senders just use plaintext like this:
"Please view the HTML version of the e-mail"
Which is annoying, because I have a preference set for plain text if it is included. If a sender doesn't have a plaintext alternative, they should not include any of this garbage plaintext, that just confuses the preference logic in MUA.
Yeah, but messing with email is scary. Email is still an open platform and if Google gets complete control of it then there is no open platform that people actually use.
Google isn't the only one implementing AMP for email, nor are they the sole controller of what AMP implementations look like. It's an open spec. Yahoo, Outlook, and Mail.ru support it.
Unfortunately "HTML + JS" based is no longer open.
Commercially competitive web browsers are absent on open (not Apple) platforms which leaves the Chrome + Firefox duopoly. Somehow Google will help Firefox stumble along since it will keep them out of trouble with the antitrust courts.
Open in what sense? For example, there's no open standard (to the best of my knowledge) for the HTML used in emails right now and different email clients render HTML in emails differently.
On the other hand, the protocol itself is standardized, but AMP is not working on protocol level.
Looking at their technical steering committee, 3 out of 7 members are from Google, with only one from a company of what I would consider equivalent pull (Microsoft).
I would hardly consider Yahoo to be a leader in anything at this point, not sure about mail.ru. From an outsider's perspective AMP looks Google controlled.
It looks like from your comment history you are part of Google's AMP team. It would be nice to disclose that.
> I would hardly consider Yahoo to be a leader in anything at this point, not sure about mail.ru.
mail.ru is owned by the same mafia group, that controls majority of Russian internet. They are either very stupid or want the same thing as Google (to destroy email as we know it). It is probably both.
Participation of mail.ru implies, that Russian mail providers won't ban Google in retaliation for this crap (neither on SMTP level nor via country-wide firewall).
Yes, but you know, that isn't Google controlling it and these are all member from major internet companies that won't take part in such a "conspiracy".
Can you remind us again how AMP for email came to be?
I remember you talking about how transparent the process is, but, alas, you never described it. And to quote another member of the discussions back then, anyone raising concerns:
> were closed or locked, and the head of AMP blocked us.
Because we do the majority of the work. The governance body size will, however, expand with further non-Google members. So, the hypothetical "you just have to convince only one" is becoming less of an issue over time.
Of course it's always the benevolent Google ramming down their network down our throats. How would AMP bans work? You can't even read any email in any client?
You yourself stated to us that Gmail team would implement AMP4Email as they wished. Did Outlook or Yahoo or Mail.ru have a choice in just telling you not to deploy AMP4Email? Or did you tell them Gmail was doing it no matter what, and ask if they wanted to not lose compatibility with 2/3rds of all email accounts on the Internet?
Suggesting any part of AMP is open still feels very disingenuous when you recognize the monopoly position of the company spearheading it.
Mutt, for instance, discards "html" and renders just the "plaintext" version. AMP emails would just be another part of the same email. Nothing would stop working.