Nah man, it's all good. I mean sure, we keep giving absurd amounts of power to an ad company but it's google, who doesn't love google.

If it was microsoft they already would have shut this down because of the backlash. Google does it and people are fine with it.

Isn't that an antitrust move by google?

> Google using their search monopoly to create a distribution monopoly is also extremely worrying.

Google is using any means possible to keep the web (html, js, css) relevant in the age of native apps (that includes Facebook app running on Android). If the web stays relevant, the same goes for Google search.

In contrast, I think google is making every effort possible to direct people away from the web and into the Google ecosystem. Searching for maps? Google. Searching for flights? Google. Searching for information? Google. The list goes on, and the technical means for delivery is essentially irrelevant.

Rich snippets is the catch all for everything else.

You can see a preview for what that means by checking out Wikipedia's traffic decline over the last 3 years or so.

To be fair, at least in wikipedia's case, that's potentially a good thing. Wikipedia isn't ad-supported, so having their data hosted elsewhere isn't actually a problem (as long as credit is given and so donations continue), because it becomes less expensive for them to host.

Definitely trying, but overreaching. The public is starting to cut out Google/the middleman and it's really just forcing shoppers into Amazon's ecosystem, those searching for flights to Skyscanner etc.