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Comment by colept | Hacker News Reader

AMP is devastating blow to Publishers because not only does it marks Google's intent to steal away traffic, but also punish publishers for not allowing that to happen.

What choice do you have? Reject traffic from Google? Every time I have been to an AMP-enabled page it's been an awful experience and unwanted. But you don't "search" for something you "Google" it.

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It is in essence Google following FB in what they did with Instant Articles. Users start in their ecosystem and they don't see any value in them leaving their ecosystem unless they are going to buy something.

Publishers typically aren't where people go to buy things. In fact, I imagine Google views them as part of COGS in a sense since they are what create display inventory.

So if Google has the leverage to reduce the cost and increase user satisfaction while simultaneously exerting more control on the display ecosystem, it seems like a smart business move to do so.

Hang on, I'm not a big AMP fan but it does not steal publishers traffic at all.

If I recall, the page is actually served from a google.com domain.

It is, but for good reasons - https://medium.com/@pbakaus/why-amp-caches-exist-cd7938da245...

It does siphon traffic by serving it from google.com, and adding a frame to the top that when clicked will take you back to Google.com. When you swipe left or right, it takes you to other AMP links from different results.

AMP links are given priority in search.

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