181–190 of 545 posts
does anyone know if this development will affect users of MapKit that hosts Google Maps within an iOS app? I've been using Google Maps through this SDK for over a year and haven't heard anything about them charging for the service or being able to track usage as one scales.
Nope. Pretty sure usage through the SDK remains free
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thought the same, there are not many use cases which will be still profitable after this price increase.
Counterpoint: if these startups need a giant subsidized mapping product for free or else they aren't profitable, they weren't ever profitable . I mean, there's a real cry-me-a-river aspect here. No one has a Google-granted fundamental right to mapping. It's a free product Google released to drive traffic to their own offerings, and which they happen to make available for free for a lot of purposes. As it turns out, y…
"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…
Is there something like Amazon or Google shopping with a list of prices for all products through time? Kind of like the Wayback Machine (archive.org) but for products. Maybe having a searchable historical database of everything imaginable and their prices would keep companies honest and prevent price gouging.
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 the…
Here is the problem. When Google first launched Maps it was free and they ran all of the other competition out of business. Now that all their competition are dead they want to charge for it. If that doesn't scream antitrust I don't know what else does. Google has grown maps using pretty shady tactics. Their data is only so good due to mining data from all the Android users and I bet Street View has a lot of governme…
It was almost ready when Google changed the rules and started charging a lot for the service.
So I learned my lesson, and never again based a project (or a part of a project) on a tier service, because the rules can change too fast and ruin it all.
That what people are experiencing now with Google map.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Warning: completely unrelated to thread topic. Poor grandparent got nuked in the votes, but I actually think this is an interesting discussion. It ties to my thoughts about politeness and behavior on the internet, which ties to my thoughts about the same IRL. Dale Carnegie, "How to Win Friends" type stuff. Is it effective to "hedge" your arguments/posts/words with a "now I might be wrong" / "you may know more about t…
This ArenaNet situation sounds interesting. Could you post a link to it? I don't see much in search results.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/12/17565218/arenanet-guild-w...
https://www.polygon.com/2018/7/10/17550276/guild-wars-2-aren...
https://www.pcgamer.com/fired-arenanet-dev-calls-dismissal-a...
In short, a woman working at ArenaNet, the company running GuildWars2 (an MMORPG), posted a twitter thread about her thoughts on designing narratives in an MMO. A prominent (male) streamer of the game responded with his opinion, which (as he stated) was a disagreement of her point of view. To this, the ArenaNet employee expressed her opinion that the streamer was explaining to her how to do her job, and implied he was doing this because she is a woman.
Quite predictably the exchange exploded into a shitstorm of epic proportions, which supernovaed when ArenaNet responded to the incident by firing the employee.
I think the response by the community at large to the woman's firing is despicable, and the firing was probably not justified. But, I have been thinking a lot about the words of the exchange, and how much of a clusterfuck the situation is. The exchange itself is, in my opinion, not black and white. To be fair, I say this as a guy, so it's entirely possible that I Just Don't/Can't Get It. I accept that and am happy to be pushed back on.
The words:
>ArenaNetEmployee: {{29 tweet thread discussing character writing in MMOS}}
>Streamer: "Really interesting thread to read! However, allow me to disagree slightly. I don't believe the issue lies in the MMORPG genre itself..."
>ArenaNetEmployee: "Today in being a female game dev: "Allow me--a person who does not work with you--explain to you how you do your job."" {{quotes streamer}}
I feel like this whole shitstorm could have been avoided if the streamer had hedged just a bit better, or instead had asked her opinion. Basically, in the discussion, setting her up as the expert (which she is), while still expressing an opposed position. This is basically what hedging does anyway.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't Uber and Amazon do that already?
i think uber at least (not that i want to defend anything they do) is different, because they don’t have low rates to smother their competition; they have low introductory rates to attract riders and drivers to the service unsure if that’s also predatory pricing? seems different to me
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I only came to the comments to upvote whoever mentioned OpenStreetMaps. It needs our love.
I only came to the comments to upvote whoever mentioned OpenStreetMaps. It needs our love. This is the platform Maps.me is based on, correct? I ask because I downloaded Maps.me the other day, after reading HN, and have found it to be missing most businesses that I've attempted to search for. In addition, there seems to be no obvious way to suggest missing destinations. I too want Google/Apple maps alternatives to suc…
You might try looking at OsmAnd. It too uses OpenStreetMap data, but it does allow you to add some amount of missing data as well (see https://osmand.net/features?id=osm-editing-plugin).
This, of course, is part of the advantage of OpenStreetMap, you notice something missing, you add it, and now it is no longer missing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I've experienced the frustration of having a formerly free service develop paid tiers (and policies that put me in those tiers), of all the changes a software service can make, this is the one that frustrates me the least, or at any rate less than: * shutting down the service entirely because the user base never grew into customers who actually valued the service * changing your terms of service to forbid an ac…
> A big price bump with a few months notice is painful (and I'm glad it's bringing competition), but it tells me they're thinking seriously about how to sustain/develop the product and lets both them and me explore the real value of the service. This is a bit of “thank you sir may I have another”. 10x price increases? It’s not sustainable? This is just a money grab - they’re not going to give a roadmap for how in the…