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Paper map sales are booming

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Re: Paper map sales are booming

#241

Post by tokenadult »

colanderman wrote: post #234
massysett wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a lot of ways, electronic maps are still inferior to the Triptik. Even the Rand McNally showed highway rest areas and picnic areas. The Triptik also showed gas stations. Electronic maps often lack this entirely, at least in easy form. The Triptik shows what you need to know while on a long motor trip. The electronic map emphasizes details I don't need. At a glance the paper map tells me whether a road is free limi…

Google Maps doesn't even show exit numbers unless you are incredibly zoomed in. They are near useless for at-a-glance visual navigation.

My user experience on several recent trips is that Google Maps showed me the exit number for the exit I would use next very prominently on top of the display (where it shows the direction of the next turn). Maybe that isn't rolled out consistently for all trips.

Re: Paper map sales are booming

#242

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

dljsjr wrote: post #49

Anybody remember Triptiks from AAA? You'd go to a AAA office or call them on the phone, tell them where you were going, and in return you'd get a printed spiral top-bound pad with your trip broken down in to multiple legs, the roads/routes pre-highlighted, gas stops and prices estimated in, a list of sites for stopping off at, etc. All human curated and human annotated (the roads on your route were literally gone ove…

I remember going to AAA offices where they would pull out a map and use highlighter on the spot and mark up the map in front of you. Nothing was prepared in advance.

Google Maps is constantly making weasel changes to try to get people to sign in and inserting ads for businesses. OpenStreetMaps is great offline, no sign-in required, but it's still too janky.

Re: Paper map sales are booming

#243

Post by brightlancer »

eternityforest wrote: post #228
navane wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most innovation sells you an inferior product for a lower price. It is almost never better than what was available in the past, just cheaper. Life becomes a series of more, but lower value experiences.

It makes life easier at the expense of some indescribable sense of "quality" or connotations of "wealth", the feeling that the product makes a statement about the skill of the maker and the user, that there's real skill involved not just a technological cheat code in real life. Which seems to be very culture specific, it's important to some but not others. I don't have much doubt that people get lost less with phones…

Rather than a subjective cultural "quality", I think there's an issue where folks are dependent upon technology and that handicaps their ability to learn or perform advanced skills.

In the US, younger students are performing worse in mathematics than previous cohorts; calculators aren't a singular cause but their ubiquity does encourage a mentality both from children and adults that basic arithmetic and even algebra or geometry aren't important, which then becomes worse performance by older students who lack the fundamentals.

I'd be interested to see a study on how often folks are "lost" and how that was defined: if someone's phone lost power or crashed mid-journey, then the person would qualify as lost because they don't know where they are or how to get out of where they are, but even with the phone _telling_ them where to go, do they really know where they are or how to get out of where they are? Or are they just a simple child being given and following directions from a parent, without any concept of what those directions mean?

Re: Paper map sales are booming

#244

Post by [deleted] »

massysett wrote: post #161
dljsjr wrote: post #49

Anybody remember Triptiks from AAA? You'd go to a AAA office or call them on the phone, tell them where you were going, and in return you'd get a printed spiral top-bound pad with your trip broken down in to multiple legs, the roads/routes pre-highlighted, gas stops and prices estimated in, a list of sites for stopping off at, etc. All human curated and human annotated (the roads on your route were literally gone ove…

In a lot of ways, electronic maps are still inferior to the Triptik. Even the Rand McNally showed highway rest areas and picnic areas. The Triptik also showed gas stations. Electronic maps often lack this entirely, at least in easy form. The Triptik shows what you need to know while on a long motor trip. The electronic map emphasizes details I don't need. At a glance the paper map tells me whether a road is free limi…

[deleted]

Re: Paper map sales are booming

#245

Post by syngrog66 »

with a paper map I cannot count on learning every road's name that I need to know, or learning it fast. with Google Maps the last few years it can be a real battle. And at the worst time UX-wise: while I'm driving and need to make a turn or lane decision in the next few minutes.

Also this reminds me to add something to my Prepper's stash: recent accurate paper maps for everywhere I might care about. Just In Case.

Re: Paper map sales are booming

#246

Post by dimator »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #242
dljsjr wrote: post #49

Anybody remember Triptiks from AAA? You'd go to a AAA office or call them on the phone, tell them where you were going, and in return you'd get a printed spiral top-bound pad with your trip broken down in to multiple legs, the roads/routes pre-highlighted, gas stops and prices estimated in, a list of sites for stopping off at, etc. All human curated and human annotated (the roads on your route were literally gone ove…

I remember going to AAA offices where they would pull out a map and use highlighter on the spot and mark up the map in front of you. Nothing was prepared in advance. Google Maps is constantly making weasel changes to try to get people to sign in and inserting ads for businesses. OpenStreetMaps is great offline, no sign-in required, but it's still too janky.

Well, realistically, if the AAA highlighter operator was later compelled to testify as to your driving plan, they would.

Re: Paper map sales are booming

#247

Post by Stratoscope »

dljsjr wrote: post #49

Anybody remember Triptiks from AAA? You'd go to a AAA office or call them on the phone, tell them where you were going, and in return you'd get a printed spiral top-bound pad with your trip broken down in to multiple legs, the roads/routes pre-highlighted, gas stops and prices estimated in, a list of sites for stopping off at, etc. All human curated and human annotated (the roads on your route were literally gone ove…

I loved TripTiks! And yes, I too was the family navigator as a kid, whether with a TripTik or an ordinary road map.

My other claim to fame was that I was the only one in the family - maybe in the entire neighborhood - who could fold a paper map so everything fell into place and it looked like new.

All the adults would just force the map to fold along whichever creases they felt like folding. I let the map "fold itself" with the map deciding where it wanted to be folded, and me just executing the map's wishes.

Specifically, first I would find the one crease that ran all the way across the map in the same direction - it was a "valley" or a "tent" all the way across, depending on which side you were looking at.

Then I'd find the next crease that was the same across the now-folded map. And the next one, and so on.

Adults didn't know this trick. They would fold along the creases, but they didn't take the time to let the map teach them which crease to fold first.

This is kind of like something I learned recently when I rescued a stray kitten from the street: You don't find a cat, the cat finds you.

Back to TripTiks, I bought one on eBay a few months ago, and it turned out to be an awesome road trip a southern California family took in the late 1960s.

First is the "front matter", with pages on:

  Using your TripTik
  Strip Map Legend
  About Accommodations
  In Case Of Accident
  Western Radio Stations
  The SPEED that's set is your best bet
  Trip Planning
  Expenses
  Entering Canada and Returning to the United States
  A Summary of Safety Responsibility Laws in Canada
Now we start the trip from Temple City, near Pasadena. Many of the pages were 2-3 page foldouts. I will use the original state abbreviations instead of our modern two-letter ones.

  Temple City to I-10 East
  I-10 to I-15 through San Bernardino
  San Bernardino to Las Vegas
  Local map of Las Vegas
  Las Vegas to Beaver, Utah
  Beaver to Salt Lake City
  Local map of Salt Lake City
  Salt Lake City to Logan, turning onto US 89 East
  Logan to Alpine, Wyo.
  Alpine to Yellowstone National Park
  Local map of Yellowstone
  Yellowstone to Gillette, Wyo.
  Gillette to Deadwood, S. Dak.
  An optional loop all around the Black Hills Region
  A TripTik Supplement for US 85/14/94 where they didn't have the map
  Belfield, N. Dak. to Bismarck, N. Dak.
  Bismarck to Fargo and on to US 81
  Fargo to Winnipeg, Man.
  Winnipeg to Kenora, Ont.
  Kenora to Port Arthur on the Thunder Bay
  Port Arthur to Nipigon, Ont.
  Nipigon to Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.
  Sault Ste. Marie to North Bay, Ont.
  Another missing-map supplement for North Bay to Ottawa, Ont.
  And finally a local map of Ottawa, their destination
Every one of these TripTik pages has a description of the towns and cities along the way, with hotel, motel, restaurant, and service station listings.

Thanks for mentioning TripTiks. It was fun for me to go through this road trip in my mind and on paper just now.

Re: Paper map sales are booming

#248

Post by bmicraft »

ghaff wrote: post #5
joshstrange wrote: post #2

> His customers, he added, aren’t just looking to maps for directions, but as inspiration for future trips or even as art worth hanging. I think that alone accounts for the vast majority of this increase. The article throws that in as a minor detail but I'd bet money it's the only reason. Of course you don't get as many clicks for "More people are buying maps as art". 2 of the 3 examples of maps they give at the end…

Essentially retro-chic. Some may have also discovered some utility in being able to have a big picture view of a destination. However, I wouldn't impute too much utility to the explanation. I'd be pretty surprised if younger generations are suddenly discovering that it can be really useful to have a physical backup in case their phone battery dies.

My physical backup in case my phone dies is my other older phone with offline maps installed. I wonder why more people don't do the same.

Re: Paper map sales are booming

#249

Post by soperj »

SoftTalker wrote: post #232
phaedryx wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found that when I'm planning things I tend to use Google Maps, but when I get in the car I tend to use Apple maps. I swear there are little differences like Google instructions will be "In X feet... turn right" where Apple is "turn right at the stop sign" which is easier to follow.

Yeah that’s nice but Apple Maps have also routed me down narrow rural roads, occasionally across private property, and proclaimed that I was at my destination when I was looking out the window at a vacant lot. In my experience, Google’s tech is better.

Definitely got routed way out of the way, over a toll bridge when it was completely unnecessary by Apple Maps. I don't use that any more.

Re: Paper map sales are booming

#250

Post by asdff »

jcranmer wrote: post #42
purpleflame1257 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just being able to know which way is "north" is probably sufficient.

There's a difference between geographic north and magnetic north that can get pretty significant (if you live in NE US, magnetic north about 10-20° west of north). If you're sailing the clipper route, for part of your journey, your magnetic compass now points as far as northwest rather than north.

A paper map of the given area will tell you what declination to set on your compass
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