Shaddows - 10:31 am on Nov 19, 2009 (gmt 0)

The point is that by including the speed of a site in its algorithms google is once again dictating how it wants the web to be and forcing site owners to comply to its ever growing list of demands.

Or, realistically, its reflecting the desires of its user base, and promoting sites that meet those desires.

If Users feel Google are promoting crap sites due to speed, they'll leave. If Users like the sites being promoted, they'll stay.

Google might have undue influence on technical development (see the SPDY thread [webmasterworld.com], or nofollow, canonical tag etc) but ranking is their sauce. If users like it, then it sticks. If users don't, it doesn't.

Sounds like some on this thread want Webmasters to have undue influence on Google's algorithm, but see it through the prism of "Google has undue influence on the web".