[stephenr]

Most people seem to intrinsically understand that a single browser-making ad company dictating what features a website can or can not use is about that company flexing it's muscles to control things.

Is that really not obvious to some?

[bscphil]

> Most people seem to intrinsically understand that a single browser-making ad company dictating what features a website can or can not use is about that company flexing it's muscles to control things.

But the point made up-thread was that "controlling things" is not intrinsically bad. The problem was that (according to some users) Google was abusing a monopoly position to control things in a way that would be beneficial to itself, but harmful to others. The question the parent to my comment was asking was, beneficial to itself how? You saying that Google is "controlling things" just takes us back to where we started, but doesn't answer the question of what Google stands to gain.

Let me give an example. Suppose by "controlling things" you mean incentivizing ("""forcing""") web developers to create pages that are better because they have lighter scripts and higher security standards for third party content. (In fact, this is what some supporters say Google is doing.) I don't think most people would have a problem with that. So presumably critics have something interesting to say about what "controlling things" really means that explains why it's bad in this particular case.

[stephenr]

> But the point made up-thread was that "controlling things" is not intrinsically bad

Well that point is wrong. If you can't see how a single, privacy abusing company having dominant control over the web is bad, I can't fucking help you.

[bscphil]

> a single, privacy abusing company having dominant control over the web is bad

I agree that that's bad. I also don't think you (or most people in this thread) have made coherent arguments for why AMP is helping Google do that. That was the parent comment's point, and I tried to highlight that because it's downvoted.

Note that "control things" is a different claim than "having dominant control over the web". It's obvious that in some sense Google is doing the first. It's obvious that the second is bad. The issue is how you get from saying that they're doing the first thing to saying that they're doing the second thing.

Google has a monopoly position, granted. But not everything a monopolist does is bad just because they're a monopolist. Another example: one thing Google does is lower the page rank of sites that show the full content to the GoogleBot but paywall real users. I think this is great! It's an attempt to control the way publishers design websites and the way their servers respond to user agents, but the point of that control is making the web a better place. Many people feel similarly about AMP: that it's getting publishers to create faster pages that make the web a better place. Can you say why they're wrong?