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Farewell, Google Maps

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Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#241

Post by dvlsg »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #211
komali2 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a couple analyses: 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 r…

This is a really unique point of view. I think conversations would be improved with this mentality. It might be a bit hard to swallow, though. Who's to say that a streamer is less qualified to analyze character writing in MMOs? After all, the writer is usually not the one impacted by the game. Streamers are. I know nothing about this situation, though. I'm just saying that it would personally feel difficult to adopt…

I don't know a ton about the situation -- I do know that the streamer in question was active enough with the community that an NPC in the game was named after him, though.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#242

Post by google_censors »

alrex021 wrote: post #44

In our own experience, we pleaded the fact that those dollar figures are just beyond workable if you consider the fact that we come from a developing country and we're faced with ~20x jump. I.e. it heavily messes with the unit economics. The Google representative actually laughed in our face (via Hangout).

If your country has any kind of antitrust or competition regulator then please file a complaint against Google.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#243

Post by ajross »

martimarkov wrote: post #229
ajross wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh... the linked article compared 8 different competitors on various metrics. There are reasonable ways to disagree with Google's policy here, but "no alternatives" and "monopolistic" are just laughably silly.

I’d disagree a bit. There are competitors but the quality and the service is not on the same level. Google have made it hard to compete so that they stay in the leadership position. More importantly google maps “owns” more market share than all of them combined so it is kinda a monopoly. I might not have explained my point well but I do think you get what I’m saying.

If players with the resources of Apple and Microsoft are lagging here, it's not because Google "made it hard", it's because it's a hard problem. Yet they are competing, and that's a good thing. Google is just better. And you want it for free. And thus we get back to the cry-me-a-river bit.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#244

Post by tssva »

dingo_bat wrote: post #208
magicalist wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Were there any significant competing maps APIs for the web in 2005? There may have been (and you seem so certain I'm sure you could name them all :P), but it's crazy to claim that there aren't far more competitors in the last 5 years than there we…

Nokia maps was pretty decent. They had acquired Navteq, which had been in the business of mapping for decades. When Google maps just used to have a list of driving instructions, Nokia maps had full turn by turn voice navigation. Of course in this case Google maps didn't drive Nokia out of business, that was totally their own doing and maps was just one collateral damage.

Nokia Maps wasn't collateral damage. It is still very much alive and kicking. Nokia rebranded Nokia Maps as Here and and eventually sold it off. Here is still very much alive. Employees several thousand and is still a major player in the mapping services business.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#245

Post by beauzero »

ajross wrote: post #111
tobltobs wrote: post #72

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…

I have been doing a lot of Local Guide work, photos, verifying, etc. in a rural area. Will be switching to OSM. This was the last straw.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#246

Post by hluska »

majewsky wrote: post #233
beerlord wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not really a fan of GDPR actually. I think advertising has its place, and the more targeted it is, the better the results for everyone. The worst thing that people can point to that this kind of advertising has caused is fake news on Facebook, which is more of a problem with America's campaign financing (non)restrictions than anything (and probably the fact that the candidate who used it was quite anti-establishm…

> The worst thing that people can point to that this kind of advertising has caused is fake news on Facebook The worst thing about targeted ads is that we're building an insane surveillance infrastructure that the government is already eager to tap into, and will be even more eager if one of our governments devolves into dictatorship. I'm from East Germany; and while I'm too young to have experienced it myself, the S…

Wow, that's a poignant last paragraph. Good writing! :)

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#247

Post by sanderjd »

emodendroket wrote: post #200
laGrenouille wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn’t that Google wants to charge for a service. The issue is that they offered it for years for free or below cost effectively price gouging any competition. Now, with no alternatives they jack up the price. Classic monopolistic and anticompetitive behaviour.

Essentially the Google Reader effect, right? Where killing their offering basically killed the entire medium.

I'm always so confused by this. I switched to Feedly the day Reader went away. It was just as good then and is better now. I subscribe to way more stuff now than I did then. I've never understood how this "killed the entire medium".

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#248

Post by rlac16 »

emodendroket wrote: post #237
parrellel wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean Google+ needed promotion so the Reader product was killed.

In the first place they'd rather you used something other than RSS so they can inject promoted content into it.

Nothing stops promoted content being injected by the feed reader. Feedly does it on their free plans.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#249

Post by bob_theslob646 »

stirlo wrote: post #235
CodeWriter23 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The standard license prohibits use in autonomous vehicles. Para 2.e https://maps.google.com/help/terms_maps.html

The issue isn't what google allows/prohibits, its that any new autonomous vehicle company could quickly amass a similar data set to street view and nullify googles 10 plus year investment driving non autonomous cars around to capture street view images.

It's not as simple as capturing the imagery. The backend processing for Google maps is astonishing. It will take years to get to the smoothness that is Google Streetview.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#250

Post by asfasgasg »

parrellel wrote: post #234
asfasgasg wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've got the causality reversed here. The medium was dying, so the Reader product was killed.

You mean Google+ needed promotion so the Reader product was killed.

Google+ only existed in the first place because of the thing that was killing the medium and its one hundred and forty character-limited cousin.
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