So you're probably wondering why on earth you should drop support for AMP in your news site.

Well, despite the fact that the change was widely criticized, Google News isn't dropping support of AMP in any way. Google says the decision is to make it easier for readers. To that end, Google has decided to downgrade AMP links from being clickable to non-clickable, regardless of whether the AMP variant was used to create the link.

Google's reasoning is that people are using AMP links to save some reading effort. In essence, Google wants publishers to demonstrate they put effort into the stories they link to, as this will make it more likely users will click those links.

I have a hard time believing this will change behavior in the slightest. People are already conditioned to click on links automatically in Google searches, where things are likely to be different.

Meanwhile, AMP links don't take up any space on your website, which is great, but they have other disadvantages.