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Farewell, Google Maps

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Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#391

Post by oblio »

komali2 wrote: post #155
C7H8N4O2 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. There was a related discussion[0] on HN a few weeks ago that I found enlightening. Commentator ucaetano's phrasing of the strategy was "create a desert of profitability around you". The discussion of moats vs deserts found here [1] is…

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.

This is funny:

Paul Graham, September 2001:

> "And if you manage to write something that takes off, you may find that you were merely doing market research for Microsoft.”

Google is today's Microsoft :)

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#392

Post by corobo »

sanderjd wrote: post #247
emodendroket wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

If we're doing anecdata when Reader was killed off I tried Feedly, didn't like it, stopped consuming via RSS. I've recently tried Newsblur but honestly I never check the thing despite having it on every device I can. I don't think RSS is a thing for me anymore outside of technically podcasts

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#393

Post by GenericsMotors »

atr2 wrote: post #318
ripdog wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't that be subpixel anti-aliasing? Besides that, there's nothing difficult to believe about that experience with google. And besides THAT, there's a far more trivial method of 'forging' an email - using the devtools to modify the DOM. No need to bust out photoshop at all. Your accusation makes no sense and is based on almost nothing.

No, it's not subpixel anti-aliasing. It's a completely different font. It looks like Roboto to me, while the rest of the email is written using Helvetica. DOM manipulation, of course. But not everybody knows about it. So most people default to Photoshop, which is what these people did. This email is FORGED, and I'd like to know why.

> DOM manipulation, of course. But not everybody knows about it. So most people default to Photoshop, which is what these people did.

They're web developers, and you're suggesting they don't know how to manipulate the DOM?

> This email is FORGED, and I'd like to know why.

The fact you're using a throwaway account to make the accusation suggests you're not too sure yourself, and you know your "evidence" is beyond flimsy.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#394

Post by YouAreGreat »

komali2 wrote: post #187
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This ArenaNet situation sounds interesting. Could you post a link to it? I don't see much in search results.

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…

> could have been avoided if the streamer had hedged just a bit better

If you find a live claymore in the middle of the company meeting room, exploding it can be avoided by circumspect behavior.

If that's all you do about it, you might as well start calling it "boss".

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#395

Post by arendtio »

linsomniac wrote: post #65

I'm just finishing spinning up OpenStreetMap servers in EC2 as one of the last stages of our testing, and they look great. We almost went with Mapbox, which is probably a pretty good alternative. But as part of that move I decided to try OSM tiles and I had them up and running in an afternoon via a docker image, created an Ansible role for deploying virtual machines that evening, and had tiles for our region built th…

I was wondering too why they skipped OpenStreetMap so quickly.

Living in Germany, I find the map quality of OSM much better than Google Maps. Sure, it lacks the integration with the other Google services like a good search and live traffic, but speaking about the pure map quality, Google is lacking a lot of detail here.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#396

Post by joeblau »

X-Istence wrote: post #115
joeblau wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's imposed on every commercial user of their API which is why a lot of companies are also leaving Google Maps. I talked about this in another post, but Apple[1], Tesla[2], and Uber[3] are all getting off of Google Maps. It seems that Google raised prices to the point where it's actually cheaper to just go and build your own maps or find a lower cost alternative. [1] - https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/29/apple-is-rebu…

Apple hasn't used Google Maps in years...

Yeah, I think that was an early sign of what was coming. The symptom then, is the same symptom now.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#397

Post by Brakenshire »

mmel wrote: post #161
jseliger wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>there seems to be no obvious way to suggest missing destinations. Unless Maps.Me use their own database for business listings, you just edit the map directly from openstreetmap.org or one of the many fat client map editors that are out there.

I don’t think that’s true. Items added on the OSM page appear on maps.me, and items added on maps.me appear on OSM.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#398

Post by tobias3 »

scarejunba wrote: post #376
majewsky wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

If you're German, then the Snowden documents show that your government is participating in domestic surveillance that it cooperates with Five Eyes on. This is a few orders of magnitude more invasive than what advertisers do. The Stasi are fresh in no one's minds or you would eliminate this surveillance.

We don't even need to look at the Snowden documents anymore. The largest Internet exchange (DE-CIX) recently lost a court case which tries to get rid of the BND wire tapping.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#399

Post by Brakenshire »

rmc wrote: post #339
jseliger wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> In addition, there seems to be no obvious way to suggest missing destinations. That's strange. I just checked Maps.me on Android, and if you open the hamburger menu there's an "add a place to the map" option.

Same on iOS.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#400

Post by tmd83 »

komali2 wrote: post #187
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This ArenaNet situation sounds interesting. Could you post a link to it? I don't see much in search results.

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…

Reading what's in the articles and twitter the firing sounds too much. On the other hand I don't see the guy needing to be even more courteous. She could tell him that his idea doesn't work, there are complexities he wouldn't understand or that she doesn't want outside opinions or whatever. Calling him names for no real reason and inventing gender bias to me is pointless. Yes he could have bias in his heart but you can't start judging people assuming things.

If you start making silly things about gender than the real problems gets lost and you hurt the cause that you are trying to promote. The subsequent twitter posts doesn't read good to me either. But some of the backlash against her was equally or probably even more so outrageous. The anonymity and distance that social media gives it users seem to in general bring out the worst in people except for rare exceptions.

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