Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating
joemorrison.substack.com
Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating
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Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating
#2Anecdotally, a potential counterpoint: https://www.justinobeirne.com/google-maps-moat
And the discussion that came with it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15965653
Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating
#3> They appear, to me, to be acting from a place of fear and conservatism rather than innovation.
Bingo. Here's a fun exercise: try to find the last genuinely useful feature added to the Maps API in the release notes.
https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/...
To give you a taste, here's the largest change made in 3.42:
> InfoWindows now have a default max width of 648px which can be overridden by setting the InfoWindow maxWidth property. The width of an InfoWindow can now exceed 648px but will still be limited by the width of the map. (Previously, Infowindows were always restricted to the lesser of 648px or the map width.)
Also note that the minor version (0.x) is incremented quarterly, and we're up to 3.43 now, so over 10 years.
Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating
#4> They appear, to me, to be acting from a place of fear and conservatism rather than innovation. Bingo. Here's a fun exercise: try to find the last genuinely useful feature added to the Maps API in the release notes. https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/... To give you a taste, here's the largest change made in 3.42: > InfoWindows now have a default max width of 648px which can be overridden by…
Yeah. Heck, just adding a little "resume previous navigation" button to the Maps screen for when you exit Navigation by mistake would be handy.
Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating
#5Apple is so far behind outside of the places they prioritize that it'll take decades at this pace to get on Google Maps' current level.
It's really useless in places like Eastern Europe, where Apple has no interest in supporting and isn't likely that it'll turn that around any time soon.
Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating
#6Anecdotally, a potential counterpoint: https://www.justinobeirne.com/google-maps-moat And the discussion that came with it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15965653
It should be noted that this article is from 2017.
Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating
#7These street maps are becoming insanely precise, probably helped by the competition. I see that Google Maps is now testing "detailed street maps" in some cities: https://www.justinobeirne.com/google-testing-detailed-street...
Just a thought: maybe they are scanning cities for their self-driving cars and are also using this data for Maps?
Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating
#8This is a familiar refrain I've recently begun to hear about many of Google's products and I'm starting to see the point. Technology has evolved significantly in the last ten years. It is now significantly easier to build a search engine with its own index and crawl the entirety of the Internet than it was ten years ago. Maps too, will go that way soon. It took IBM and Intel, who were regarded the same way Google is now, half a century to be dethroned. For Google, this might happen on a more accelerated schedule. I suspect there will be a swarm of startups biting at its heels within the next five years.
Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating
#9Apple is so far behind outside of the places they prioritize that it'll take decades at this pace to get on Google Maps' current level. It's really useless in places like Eastern Europe, where Apple has no interest in supporting and isn't likely that it'll turn that around any time soon.
In Easter Europe even Google Maps are much worse that OpenStreetMaps.
Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating
#10Apple is so far behind outside of the places they prioritize that it'll take decades at this pace to get on Google Maps' current level. It's really useless in places like Eastern Europe, where Apple has no interest in supporting and isn't likely that it'll turn that around any time soon.
Also in central Europe. Maps and navigation in the Croatian countryside is comically broken. Not only are the locations of addresses way off, if you travel to that location, they'll then send you somewhere else and eventually in a circle.
Maybe they don't care about poor countries with lower usage, but I'd be embarrassed to have that in my product.
Having said that, rich western Europe is in some ways no better. If you create a public transport route, Google maps will send you walking hundreds of meters around non-existent barriers, or sometimes insist that you go one tram stop past and then catch the tram back to the stop you want to go to.
Maps, like search seems to be slowly suffering from some sort of corporate rot over at Google.