How does this impact site traffic? They are taking popular queries and providing the answer to them on a google.com hosted page. Does that mean less click-throughs to actual result pages? Does that bother anyone?
Since Google makes money on the ad clicks both on SERPs (AdWords) and content (AdSense) it's safe to assume they won't be answering everyone's questions.
Google gets 100% of Google.com ad money vs 30% or so on Adsense. A major difference I'd say. Plus, some sectors are worth a lot more and you can bet Google is aware of that.
