This is not really the point, the point is that the page loads anyway, without the AMP scripts so there's really no excuse for having an 8s delay. I don't want this google stuff on every web page I visit, and frankly it's unnecessary -- this article could easily have been written using static HTML / CSS and it would probably have been easier to develop (as well as access).

Disabling javascript doesn't disable css animations.

The CSS animation only comes into play as a fallback mechanism. The AMP script will force a draw sooner otherwise.

Precisely. The exact code is here:

https://www.ampproject.org/docs/fundamentals/spec/amp-boiler...

Here it is pretty-printed and simplified to not have the vendor-specific stuff:

  <style amp-boilerplate>
  body{
    animation:-amp-start 8s steps(1,end) 0s 1 normal both
  }
  @keyframes -amp-start{
    from{visibility:hidden}to{visibility:visible}
  }
  </style>
  <noscript>
    <style amp-boilerplate>
      body{animation:none}
    </style>
  </noscript>

The first bit is for browsers with javascript, but where the network is poor and can't load the minimal required highly cacheable javascript file within 8 seconds. It uses CSS just in case javascript really isn't working anyway such as being disabled per domain or something. The second bit is for browsers without javascript - the page is unblocked immediately.