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Farewell, Google Maps

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Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#351

Post by RugnirViking »

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…

Counterpoint: if these startups need a giant subsidized transport infrastructure/global telecomunications network/permissive government/low-cost computer hardware/solid legal system or else they aren't profitable, they weren't ever profitable.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#352

Post by Ultimatt »

da_chicken wrote: post #287
ajross wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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, kind of, but on the other hand, think about all the companies whose costs are subsidized by having public roads.

Yup and in the UK because freight is all on tax payer paid roads private rail has become incredibly expensive for normal people travelling.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#353

Post by auslander »

Good lesson, I'd say. My experience designing big production systems - is not to rely on any third-party for your mission-critical core operation, even if it's harder, you have control.

Google is actually devouring Internet as we speak, like a black hole:

- email. Keeping your own server unblocked by Gmail is a loosing battle. I use iCloud, but it still goes through Google for my Gmail and G-Suite peers.

- Search - monopoly. Analytics - monopoly.

- Android. Try make a phone with open source Android without Google apps and licensing.

- Companies and schools move all its people to G Suite (Google).

Ten years later 'Internet' will be replaced by 'Google' in dictionaries, as it happened to 'googling'. GSP = Google Service Provider (former ISP), GETF = Google Engineering Task Force (former IETF) :)

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#354

Post by pliny »

emn13 wrote: post #333
callalex wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wording was a bit confusing, but I think the GP meant that Google _thinks_ they have no competition so can get away with sudden price gouging.

Since API's aren't standardized and conversion from one product to another likely requires development work and probably impacts your usage in some way even then - the barriers to switching are high enough that the availability of alternative maps still doesn't represent a whole lot of competition.

This argument is symmetric, it implies all other map providers (who are competitors of google maps and of each other) also have no competitors.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#355

Post by RugnirViking »

jhall1468 wrote: post #308
google_censors wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please contact the US Department of Justice and let them know about how the price increase is affecting you in regards to Street View. They seemed to buy into my reasoning that Google has effectively made sure that they won't have any Street View competition by artificially keeping prices low for years. The more people that complain, the sooner the DOJ will probably take action. For European users I recommend complai…

Bing Streetside and OpenStreetCam are a thing. They just aren't very good. There's a huge up-front investment for street view images that other companies didn't want to take. Microsoft invested in it, released a product and the product wasn't as good as the market leader. That's not predatory.

Just because there are competitors in a field does not mean that one company does not hold a monopoly. There were other oil companies in existence when standard oil was broken up.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#356

Post by PunchTornado »

why would you expect prices for an online service to be different in Poland compared to Germany or Africa?

The cost to Google is the same, no matter where the user is.

What you're asking is basicaly that people from Germany to subsidise the cost for Poland by paying more, right?

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#357

Post by Grue3 »

megous wrote: post #75

> Google Maps is objectively the best product on its market, in many regards positioned light years ahead of its competitors. No. Google maps is an absolute, washed out turd style wise. We have much better local competitor. Compare this: https://www.google.com/maps/@50.081478,14.4272906,13z https://mapy.cz/zakladni?x=14.4068130&y=50.0892746&z=13 You can try various zoom levels, and mapy.cz is always better. Much more…

Pretty good, but check this out: https://2gis.ru/moscow

Buildings are actually 3d at closer zoom levels.

You can click on a building to see the list of all businesses in that building.

Bus routes can be shown when clicking on a route number.

The best part, it works completely offline as a phone/desktop app.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#358

Post by dmortin »

google_censors wrote: post #242
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.

The thing is Google Maps is not a monopoly. There are plenty of other map providers, so a price increase is not anti competitive, because you can switch to other providers.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#359

Post by StudentStuff »

roadbeats wrote: post #345

I would never trust Google as a business partner based on only my personal experiences. Here is a list of problems I had with Google and its services; - Firebase suddenly changed its pricing, claiming that they were calculating prices incorrectly. A tiny multiplayer game that I made for kids were not fitting the free tier anymore, and my account was locked until I make payment. A sudden e-mail at 6am in the morning w…

To dogpile on, among my closest friends we've have over a dozen dead Pixel phones (due to hardware issues, though one started smoking) and a half dozen dead Nexus's.

Meanwhile, I'm essentially banned from Google Wallet for sending a friend $600 with a card I'd had on the account for years, with no way of recovering it without giving Google my SSN, multiple utility bills and passport. This is far beyond what Know Your Customer regulations require, and I still was well below KYC thresholds that their competitors use (PayPal, Zelle (no apparent limits)).

Considering my bank doesn't have my SSN or passport, I am not handing that out like candy to the world's premier data mining company for a highly questionable account review. This right here is why I'm on Zelle :P

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#360

Post by worble »

ucaetano wrote: post #203
komali2 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost every conversation I've had with someone working at a startup in this city inevitably turns to the "so, are you worried Google will simply start offering your service for free?" I remember like 3 or 4 years ago having this conversation at a hackathon with a bunch of "Machine Learning" / "Sentiment Analysis" APIs present... right as google started offering both for free on their cloud platform.

Which most likely meant the startup was a feature or a product, not a company with a viable business model.

What it actually means is that google has more money, so they can muscle their way in with cheap/free offerings that are as good or better as the competition, kill it and then hike prices.
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