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> Let me package that up for you – Google, the most dominant search engine globally – used that dominant market position to encourage publishers to adopt techno
by Lucasoato 6y ago
> Let me package that up for you – Google, the most dominant search engine globally – used that dominant market position to encourage publishers to adopt technology so that Google could store and serve publisher’s content on Google’s domain.
It's absurd, how could regulators and authorities let this happen? Let's also mention how hard and counterintuitive is getting to the original site from the amp version.
- brutal_chaos_ 6y agoTech literacy isn't exactly rampant. It's sad really and part of the reason we have memes like the "internet is a series of tubes" and laws like the DMCA in the US.
- ocdtrekkie 6y agoLiteracy isn't the problem, campaign finance is. Google spreads around money to both sides of the aisle at basically the legal maximum level.
- godelmachine 6y ago>>Let's also mention how hard and counterintuitive is getting to the original site from the amp version I stopped using Chrome as my primary browser and moved to Firefox for exactly same reason - AMP.
- Angostura 6y agoI simply moved to DDG as my default search engine on mobile for the same reason.
- mixmastamyk 6y agoOh, now I understand why I've never encountered AMP or had reason to complain about it.
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- epistasis 6y agoMe too, without a way to turn off AMP I was forced to take drastic action. Then I adopted DDG on my main computer, after I didn't notice any bad side effects compared to Google web search.
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- turdnagel 6y agoThe unofficial motto of the tech industry is "ask for forgiveness, not permission."
- Barrin92 6y ago>how could regulators and authorities let this happen because they have been asleep at the wheel for almost two decades now, letting tech companies privatize and eat away at the open nature of the internet, so now we have to live in tech giant fiefdoms where they can determine the very form and content of everything displayed on the web because they're the ones who control every access point and standard.
- georgeecollins 6y agoBut also a few times on this site in the past few years when someone complained about AMP, technical people on HN would also say that Google was doing the right thing to make mobile pages more responsive. Google was saying they were trying to solve a real problem, and it isn't easy (for me at least) to have known their true goals. Now if you read the the Texas anti trust suit -- and I recommend it to anyone who is interested-- it seems pretty clear that their motive for AMP was to improve their ad revenue.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago> their motive for AMP was to improve their ad revenue It can be both. AMP legitimately sped up a lot of crappy news sites. That put pressure on non-AMP sites to get their game together. It was probably a net positive at first. But then Google abused their position.
- ethbr0 6y ago> But then Google abused their position Absolute market dominance corrupts absolutely. Even, and in spite of, efforts to the contrary from within the company.
- Angostura 6y agoAll they needed to do, in my opinion was to let it be known that sites that were optimised for mobile accessibility and fast loading would prioritised in mobile search result placement, above slow, inaccessible sites.
- vxNsr 6y agoWell, let me break it down for you: The US political landscape looks like this: Republicans want deregulation everywhere, no matter the cost, the second you talk about limiting big business or monopoly busting they run away. Democrats on the other hand rely heavily on favors from the tech establishment to keep their agendas front and center and hide any downsides, this means letting BigTech(tm) have free reign. Thus both parties are incentivized to look the other way. Only recently did the Republicans wake up to TOO BIG = bad; but their solutions are all terrible and thankfully were never entertained by any meaningful majority. Meanwhile the democrats are working very hard to cement the current big tech conglomerates into having control and power so you can expect more of the same.
- api 6y ago> the second you talk about limiting big business or monopoly busting they run away Unless big business is de-platforming right-wing content, in which case this principle is instantly forgotten and we need regulation and monopolies need to be broken up...
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- vxNsr 6y ago> Only recently did the Republicans wake up to TOO BIG = bad; but their solutions are all terrible and thankfully were never entertained by any meaningful majority. Covered that here
- setpatchaddress 6y agoThe parties have changed since whenever you last read up on this (four years ago? ten years ago?). Gop politicians (for Republicans call themselves this) don't care about deregulation anymore -- they just want to funnel money and power to the wealthy. Dem politicians now seem very excited about breaking up Facebook and Google. Both parties want to hurt Google and Facebook for perceived political bias. Gop politicians want this because Google and Facebook sometimes allow some left-of-center voices to occasionally penetrate their newsfeeds. Dem politicians want this because Facebook has been a vector for QAnon and other wingnut-terrorist radicalization.
- hctaw 6y agoWhich regulators? Which laws or policies have they broken? The failure here is more that regulation covering this stuff is very unclear. Is it anti-trust? Telecommunications? And if it is antitrust, what is anti competitive? How is the consumer harmed? How are others being prevented from competing? Basically you can't just say "Google bad" here. Regulators need to go from that to "Google bad, and illegal." That last thing is not clear right now
- Black101 6y agoThe reddit bot that automatically de-amp website URLs is pretty nice... https://ns.reddit.com/user/AmputatorBot https://ns.reddit.com/user/AmputatorBot
- adrr 6y agoIs AMP really that bad? There isn't annoying modals that take over the screen. No ads inject themselves into my scroll. Videos players that work and don't have two minutes of prerolls and the main content just buffers forever. I just hate it messes up the url.
- Pxtl 6y agoAMP is an annoying modal that takes over your screen.
- skeletal88 6y agoYes, I fucking hate it. Every time I search for something on mobile and the result is something from reddit I only get to see only a part of the first post and some of the comments, to read more I have to click "read more". Why would this ever be helpful to anyone? What purpose does it serve other than waste the users time and make him do more clicks? Also - has anyone ever been happy to land on an AMP page, and think, "wow, this is really useful, I'm glad I'm on this weird page, instead of the original one" ?
- RandallBrown 6y agoIsn't that reddit's fault? I tend to click on AMP results in searches because they always load so much faster. I don't have a strong opinion either way, but I do think that the stated purpose of having an easily cacheable and loadable webpage is a good one.
- afavour 6y agoAMP versions are often inferior because AMP isn’t actually HTML. You can’t even use an <img/> tag. So you have to develop an alternate version of every page for SEO. Inevitably a lot of companies don’t have the resources to actually do that so you end up with half finished, half implemented AMP versions.
- nanidin 6y agoWhen I click a Reddit link, I expect to be logged in as myself with the ability to vote & comment directly. Instead I land on an easily cacheable page that asks me to download the Reddit app without fail. Reddit is already fast, Reddit does not benefit from AMP - except by putting that "This page looks better in the app!" modal back in the face of people that have otherwise disabled it via their user settings.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago> how could regulators and authorities let this happen? Tech companies were ridiculously popular until recently.
- jeffbee 6y agoUntil this very minute, you mean. Google is viewed more favorably than any other company, organization, or institution in America. Only here on HN is it constantly denounced.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago> Google is viewed more favorably than any other company, organization, or institution in America. Only here on HN is it constantly denounced. This is no longer accurate. Tech companies as a whole have seen a sharp decline in net favorability since 2015 [1]. Within the cohort of tech companies, Google is favourably views [2]. But even then, there is thin popular support for breaking it up. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/29/americans-have-become-much-less-positive-about-tech-companies-impact-on-the-u-s/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/29/americans-h... [2] https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/2/21144680/verge-tech-survey-2020-trust-privacy-security-facebook-amazon-google-apple https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/2/21144680/verge-tech-survey...
- jeffbee 6y agoI mean, did you read those articles? In the first article "tech companies" generally are viewed as positively as churches and more positively than everything else, including universities! In the second one Google has a 90% favorable rating and only 4% think it has a negative impact on society.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago> "tech companies" generally are viewed as positively as churches and more positively than everything else, including universities Google, and tech, is still popular. It's just not ridiculously, untouchably popular. When it comes to Teflon in politics, what matters is (a) having a vocal minority who love you and (b) not having a vocal minority who hate you. The former protect you. The latter attack. Google went from having everyone on their side, strongly, to having most people on their side and a vocal minority against. That's the difference between a Congressional investigation or DOJ complaint gaining traction and getting sniped. Also, nitpick, universities were expressed as having a positive impact by two thirds of Democrats and one third of Republicans in 2019; the comparable numbers were 54 and 44% for tech companies. In 2010 it was 71% and 66%. You don't lose twenty percent of the country costlessly, even if people start disliking other stuff a bit more, too.
- cambalache 6y agoHey but google put a rainbow on its webpage and a BLM banner so that is the only important thing
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y agoBecause for everyone except techies, the domain that the content is actually served from is pretty irrelevant. What's the benefit of this (except caching = faster page loads and navigation) for Google? To my knowledge, the ad revenue goes to the publisher, and any other company that wanted to serve the content under their domain could do so.
- afavour 6y agoSince all the pages are on Google’s domain they can track whatever they want: which links get clicked, how far someone scrolls, etc etc etc.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y agoa) do they? b) can they not do that on the publisher domain too, because one of the 300 trackers that every publisher embeds tends to be Google Analytics?
- agumonkey 6y agoWasn't it for performance and savings too ? It's not just siphoning productions from other companies.. at least officially.