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Prince Singh
Prince Singh

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Lightning: How AMP Shocked the Web and Then Short-Circuited

Remember Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)?

It was the new kid on the block. The cool dude with lightning-fast loading speeds. It swaggered into town like a Superhero.

I also scrambled to join the AMP bandwagon. let me say this, it was like minions going crazy for bananas. It spread faster than gossip in a WhatsApp group.

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For a while, AMP was everywhere. For news sites and blogs, it was a dream. Simple content, fast load times, happy readers. Name any publisher, they all adopted it. They loved - the load time faster than Usain Bolt on a sugar rush.

In 2024, 70% of websites take more than 7s to load, but in 2017, it used to load in few milliseconds, almost instantly. AMP pages loaded quicker than you could say "chai-paani".

Ad revenue? Oh, it was sweeter than anything. AMP ads loaded fast, which meant more eyeballs and more money.

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Then, trouble started brewing. AMP was fast, sure. But as websites got more complex, AMP started to feel like a straitjacket. Comfy for some, but too restrictive for others.

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Publishers realized they were losing control. AMP URLs lived on Google's domain. It was like having your shop inside someone else's mall. Sure, it looks nice, but is it really yours?

Slowly, the shine wore off. Web standards caught up. Regular mobile pages got faster. AMP started to look less like a hero and more like a character actor.

Today, AMP is like that one-hit wonder singer. You remember them, but you're not sure why.

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It works, but is it really necessary? Some still use AMP. It may be useful in some very specific scenarios. AMP success stories.

In the end, AMP was like that trendy fusion restaurant in town. Exciting at first, but you eventually crave the real deal.

Like a monsoon sale, it came, it wowed, and it went. But the web keeps shopping for the next big thing.

Share your AMP adventures in the comments - whether they're tales of lightning-fast glory or cautionary fables of web dev woe.

We'd love to hear your war stories! Tell us about your encounters with the speed demon of the web - the good, the bad, and the hilariously insane.

Enjoyed the article? Let's connect on LinkedIn isinghprince for more web dev chats!

Best,
Prince Singh.

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