AMP so obviously was better than ginormous ad filled sites that jank and jump like crazy it wasn't even funny. The idea that there was no user benefit was just a HN view - out in the real world plenty of people learned the lightening icon meant both faster and usually much cleaner and easier to browse.

I think in part a fair number of HN folks maybe do web dev work, and having google restrict the junk they can dump on users was annoying to them. A fair bit of the anti-trust rhetoric is not coming from consumers or consumer advocates but other businesses - some of which have just horribly seedy business models (the recommendation engine searching sites with all the auto-generated fake reviews complaining of de-prioritizations etc).