Farewell, Google Maps • Hacker News Board

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#51

Post by xenadu02 » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 9:58 PM UTC

zylepe wrote: post #22

This mentions Apple mapkit js. This is the first I’ve seen of that. Has anyone used it before? I’m wary of building anything on a proprietary JavaScript api, but if they provide tiles that can be used in leaflet or mapbox gl it might be an attractive option.

MapKit JS allows 250,000 instantiations and 25,000 service calls per day on the free tier. Currently you must have a paid developer account to use MapKit JS.

Beyond that use this form to request an increase in your limit: https://developer.apple.com/contact/request/mapkitjs/

As for pricing, nothing has been announced at this time.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#52

Post by ethbro » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 9:58 PM UTC

RestlessMind wrote: post #21

> Importantly, prices are the same from US to the Africa, despite the fact that revenue generation is vastly different in most developed countries compared to the others. This can be understood in two ways: 1. Cost of serving is the same from US to Africa (datacenters, network bandwidth, engineering etc), so prices are same 2. If #1 results in less adoption from developing countries, it is okay because they are not t…

#2 seems shortsighted as a business model.

Where your unit cost for a product is essentially negligible (amortized against other GM customers and GCP scale infrastructure), why would you decrease exposure in a potential growth market?

The business answer is "because offering discounts cannibalizes revenue from higher-margin markets." But in this case... you literally know exactly where the user is located.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#53

Post by ethbro » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 10:00 PM UTC

woohoo7676 wrote: post #35

I work for a startup that has mapping/routing as one of its core needs - about a year or two ago we decided that our reliance on Google's mapping APIs was too great and decided to work on having a switchable backup provider in case something like this should ever happen. With auto complete especially, we would have had a 10-20x increase in pricing (and this is with an 'enterprise' plan pricing). As the article says,…

Any details on how complicated enabling that switchability was? Or details / costs / takeaways from your process?

Seems like now would be a great time to write a blog post on how you did it. :)

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#54

Post by pauldbau » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 10:01 PM UTC

We used to use Skobbler, which was great until they basically stopped working and went silent. For the past 18 months, we've used Thunderforest (it's an OpenStreetMap PaaS) and they're great. Solid uptime, good maps and the pricing is amazingly good. Andy - the guy who runs it - is super helpful and can also put together custom map styles (which we've taken up).

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#55

Post by 6cd6beb » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 10:01 PM UTC

ericd wrote: post #7

"Sudden change of policy by Google, which is directed specifically at startups (as smaller web sites should largely remain below even the new lower thresholds), is surely an unpleasant surprise for us and does not create much trust in Google as a vendor. In the future we would therefore keep our distance from Google Cloud and avoid deep integration with any Google services on which it can pull a similar trick. For ex…

>In the case of maps, there weren't many great alternatives for a long time, due to Google sucking all the oxygen/profit potential out of the field with their excellent free offerings.

ianal and all that, but isn't somewhere antitrust- or monopoly- adjacent?

I know if walmart moved into a new city and started giving away hardware for free, then waited until all the local hardware stores had been shut down for 10 months, and then jacked up their prices to 100 times what they used to be before going free, that'd be pretty illegal.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#56

Post by beerlord » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 10:01 PM UTC

I think the GDPR and EU fine is going to trigger Google - and perhaps other large American tech companies - to actually start charging for services, now that our personal data cannot be so easily sold. Google has been enjoying huge profits, so is probably setting the pricing on those services at the level required to maintain those profits.

I think what we will see in the maps arena is multiple-country specific maps sites popping up, like a map site specific to Poland for example. Physical businesses will then have a real hassle making sure they have a presence on ~10 different mapping sites, instead of just Google Maps.

Ironically it will make getting around Europe more difficult. I have lived in Poland and there are a lot of business absent from Google Maps, and a lot of cities not present on Google Maps transit.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#57

Post by izacus » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 10:03 PM UTC

abduhl wrote: post #34

adamrezich wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure it is, but they can afford it...

This is actually my real question: can these companies afford it? If a company has X months of runway and their Maps costs just went up by a factor of 11 then Google may have just gone from "less than payroll" to "more expensive than our devs". Is this Google trying to move into a new space?

Do you really think you can just jumpstart a project like Google Maps with a few devs?!

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#58

Post by bflesch » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 10:03 PM UTC

I think it is positive that google finally reaches a sane price point with maps. As the comparison in the blog post shows, the whole market of map providers looked at what gmaps is charging and kind of went along with a price in the same category.

The higher price allows them to actually get paid for the value they provide to various startups, which - as they pointed out in the blog post - would not exist without these maps.

Of course, the open source approach of OSM with mostly unpaid volunteers is again able to show its potential.

Everyone agrees gmaps has the best data imagery, plus street view - so why not make people pay for it accordingly. I really don't see a problem with this. On top of that people finally receive proper support from google once significant sums are involved.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#59

Post by atr2 » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 10:03 PM UTC

That email is fake: they have forged the screenshot. In the first paragraph you can clearly see how the typeface changes to something different (starting with "enterprise-grade")

Compare these two "g": https://i.imgur.com/8Ja6pl2.png

I've archived the post in case they decide to fix their "mistake". https://archive.is/w2swh

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#60

Post by dom96 » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 10:03 PM UTC

Google really needs to stop treating their customers and users so badly.

Slightly offtopic: I have been trying to get Google to fix the location of my flat on Maps for years now. I have reported it multiple times to them and it is still unfixed. Does anyone know a more direct way I can get in touch with them?