Web by Google (TM)

I actually posted a very similar comment before I saw yours. I totally agree that there's always this sort of redirection going on whenever there's something critical of Google here. And there's so much about Google I like. I just wish we could have more discussion about the original topic.

This is a good point, I've never really looked much at the breakdown of device popularity by manufacturer.

All the devices I've purchased have been Nexus/Pixel devices, so Chrome is a given there.

I assume at the end of the day Samsung Browser is just a reskinned Blink, though?

I see parent’s general point being that some people work in p2p mode, whatever the medium is.

Here facebook is the tool, but what matters to them is not to get random info through the feed. It’s to ask people and hear what people have to say, often very close people (family, friend, real world connections). In this respect messaging could be the main use actually.

This is the equivalent of some of our parents who wouldn’t open the phone book to find some garagist when they have car issues. They’d phone a friend and ask them for recommendations.

And this is the problem for anyone outside of the CompSci field. To those it looks like URL non-sense but it's rooted far deeper then that. This isn't philosophical.

By choosing to use AMP, you are ultimately choosing to destroy the internet. You're granting the power of one company to run and control what you visit, do, use. Your surrendering your data for them to make money off to use and abuse.

Your supporting the downfall of innovation. Your eliminating development of opportunities and innovation. Denying fairness. Nothing there is philosophical, that's all real all because you choose to use Google Amp.

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The internet is made up from many devices connected somehow Without a search engine how would you locate information? You can't unless you knew Computer X has the information on what you need. Just as an encyclopedia has an index telling you to look which volume and page to open.

A search engine crawls from computers to computers in hunt for information and then records it in a catalog. So when you search "dogs" this is then retrieved within the catalog for any computers that hold information on dogs.

This costs money, so what's a way of making money? Sell search results. My information on dogs is not that useful but I do like users visiting my webpage because I may sell pet related items. So I pay google £100 to list my website at the top when someone searches "dog". Great, I am now top of the list. Others do the same and get their search results on the top too.

However, my friend who is a vet has a information piece on if a dog is sick, and the remedy on what to do. Unfortunately they don't have the money to boost their page to the top, so it gets buried. Some pseudo science website makes a page about dog cures and pays for it's rank. The information I need on how to cure a dogs cold is now buried further but that's okay, I now have a fake remedy on how to cure a dogs cold.

Next up is Google Amp.

Amp is disguised to load the pages faster, but all it's really doing is collecting information about the user who visits, and redirects them to a branded copy-paste version of the original website and sells the users information.

I'm really a company who sells placebo medicine for dogs, my medicine has killed a few dogs in the past but no worries, it's trusted because I'm with Google Amp.

At the same time google implements a new policy "You must use AMP to be part of google search engine pages 1 to 6" -- This in return costs money to implement. So now the vet piece on how to cure a dog's cold is now on page 7.

Who goes to page seven on google? The average user normally stops around page three.

Well, now you've got to pay money to get a listing and now that anybody can cram an illegitimate idea into a web page and in which so long as it's encoded as AMP content – it'll look like it's from a legit new organization endorsed by Google.

On top you are at Google’s mercy when it comes to how (and even if) your content is actually displayed. If google doesn't like your page, swipe, there goes your listing.

Your a vet, you don't have money to implement AMP, nor do you have the money to get your page to the top which you now can't because your not using AMP. So the vet isn't getting any visitors, your vet practice is unknown in the world apart from local town folk. So not only are you crippling businesses from thriving because of Amp, your supporting a dominated chosen google market.

Google wants you all within googles walled garden. Above is a jist of it. But AMP is bad, there is NO good coming from AMP. By supporting amp, your support death of freedom.

Eh, the article is about threats to the web as an information resource not controlled by one company. I don't think it's a distraction to put it in context.

Although I guess it becomes one when that becomes like the bulk of what HN viewers see in the first few screens of comments. I guess it could be argued we should have more discipline in HN comments because of the affordances. But that applies to replies to the comment turning it into a big thread of different opinions too, if you just left it alone/non-controversial, it wouldn't do that.