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Farewell, Google Maps

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Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#521

Post by google_censors »

dmortin wrote: post #358
google_censors wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's not a single usable competitor to street view considering the coverage and quality. They got that imagery using money from non-maps revenue, while keeping Maps pricing artificially low for years, with the the practical effect of making sure that no one else could compete with them. So you can't switch street view providers if it's integrated into your product, and now you get to suck up an insane price increase. Which makes it in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act here in the United States and I'm sure the EU has even stricter rules on monopolies.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#522

Post by RestlessMind »

ethbro wrote: post #52
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.

> why would you decrease exposure in a potential growth market?

But is exposure really reduced? Google already has a free quota which is enough to bring plenty of exposure.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#523

Post by zylepe »

vinnieman232 wrote: post #264
zylepe wrote: post #31

This talks mostly about road map tiles. Has anyone found any good options for satellite image tiles? Mapbox resells DigitalGlobe imagery but would cost over $1k/month for my site so I’m looking for an alternative with more attractive pricing options

Hi Zylepe! Disclosure, I work at Mapbox, but wanted to point you towards our Satellite Streets tiles which combine many different data sources (including DG), but also contain high-resolution flyover imagery in larger urban areas in the USA. https://www.mapbox.com/maps/satellite/ What did you use to calculate your $1k price/month estimate for your website?

Thanks! The quality is great but I need around 250k 512x512 satellite tile loads per day so 250k / (4 tiles per “view”) * (30 days per month) - (50k free requests per month) * ($0.50 per 1000 views) = $912.50 per month. Is my understanding correct?

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#524

Post by fauigerzigerk »

ryanmercer wrote: post #519
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have read an entirely different story. The customer Google is losing here is clearly willing to pay, not expecting a free ride. And there is absolutely no similarity between your MailChimp example and what Google has done in this case. The customer didn't complain about costs rising as the number of users starts to exceed an existing threshold. That said, I wouldn't be so quick to call for the regulator.…

>You seem to have read an entirely different story. The customer Google is losing here is clearly willing to pay, not expecting a free ride. Yet they spend the entire post whining about it.

The post that I have read complains about an extreme and sudden change in Google's pricing structure and then goes on to compare alternatives for most of post, all of which are non-free.

They also say "Of course, we always knew that as we grew larger, there would be cost to using Google Maps."

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#525

Post by lucb1e »

dom96 wrote: post #506
lucb1e wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try openstreetmap.org, there user contributions are always welcome :)

Yes, I already made modifications on it. As far as I can tell openstreetmap is the only map that successfully finds the location of my address.

Always the same. Especially when TomTom satnavs were commonplace and you had to pay for map updates, nobody could ever find your house if you lived in a new area, or if there were new roads in the area. Recently they built a new tunnel here, it took a few months before friends and family stopped complaining about Google leading them wrong. Meanwhile I use OsmAnd and have no trouble anywhere (when driving in western Europe). Or if I forgot to update my map, then I can still figure out my way by looking at the roads tagged as "currently being built" on my version of the map. OSM really is just power to the people.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#526

Post by everybodyknows »

asadlionpk wrote: post #66
6cd6beb wrote: post #55

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. 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 mont…

Don't Uber and Amazon do that already?

Yes. Web search: "Amazon diapers.com".

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#527

Post by arendtio »

Qub3d wrote: post #482
arendtio wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

From the article (emphasis added): "Which maps should we investigate deeper? Some options we could reject quickly for various reasons. OpenStreetMap is not supposed to be directly used by commercial sites. Apple Maps, even though we wouldn't mind having Apple logo on our site somewhere, was just released as beta and requires Apple developer account to test properly."

I read that, but compared to the effort they put into analysing the whole issue, at least an estimate about the cost involved in hosting their own server would be a good decision.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#528

Post by arendtio »

linsomniac wrote: post #486
arendtio wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It seems like they rejected OSM because they couldn't directly use the OSM site to serve tiles, but would instead need to host their own infrastructure for it. I understand that, but for us we decided to go ahead and own it.

I think if the maps service is part of your core product, it is good considering a self hosted solution. Yes, it costs time you want to save as a startup, but at least you control your own product and can manage your cost directly.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#530

Post by majewsky »

aeorgnoieang wrote: post #485
SllX wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising's place is as a vehicle for emotional manipulation and stuffing all available channels with propaganda selling the advertiser's particular brand of product or politics. Certainly it can also be used to dispense useful information, but if someone is spending money to dispense that particular information, they have an agenda. It might be innocuous, "buy our product!". Or it can be malicious. Either way ther…

Your comment seems like an attempt at emotional manipulation and propaganda for your particular politics. Your argument doesn't seem to reasonably distinguish between good or bad behavior generally.

Can you point to the point where SIIX's wording is seeking to emotionally manipulate you? I think you're conflating "emotional manipulation" with "using words that have emotional connotations" in an effort to build a strawman.
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