I am not hating on Google, just that I hate I have no alternatives but jumping the hoops Google puts out there.
Sometimes it seems the overwhelming sentiment at HN is that ads (especially targeted ones) are bad for the world. But it seems like nearly everyone is relying on them for their livelihood.
With Google there is no option. They set the rules, they own the game and I can’t spend these dollars anywhere else if wanted to. This creates an imbalance, both for Google itself and for customers (ad payers)
I mean, how many can knowingly risk loosing website from the front page if they don't use AMP or worse don't display Google Ads? How can a layman even know their website is being penalised for not doing those, whom can they complain to when anti-trust regulations are non-existant in other parts of the world and even if they exist monopolies tend to keep the bureaucrats/politicians well fed.
So yeah, HOOORAHHH! if you live in U.S.A.
I've been SEOing for 8 years now with endless debates with dev people about AMP. I pushed to have it simply because "if google says jump, you say how high".
There's a bunch of insane tactics with the Ads model. For example the Ads quality score which is a totally ambiguous rating out of 10. They will then rate the page based on a whole load of variables and determine the rating - if you get 4/10 you are going to be paying more for your bids due to being penalized for low-quality BUT they will still allow it.
Now trying to figure how to improve and get it up to 10/10 is an entire process in itself. There's going to be people coming out of the wood work saying that the Quality Score is easy and so on but to me is just smells of unfair practices to exploit each cent out of advertisers.