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Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

lyft.com

11–20 of 181 posts

Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#11
post #6

This is yet another "We found a community project providing us with billions of dollars in free work but don't find it worth the effort to contribute anything back"

You think they wanted to own more of their product, integrated OSM, and now if there's complaints or things to change they're like "sorry nah"?

That doesn't sound right to me, I'm curious if you have any examples or sources

Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#12
post #6

This is yet another "We found a community project providing us with billions of dollars in free work but don't find it worth the effort to contribute anything back"

I may get downvoted, but if OSM was not fine with this exact situation happening, then they shouldn't license it the way they do. Nothing seems to indicate so far that they're not fine with the situation so it looks like everyone is happy.

I think both sentiments can be valid. If OSM really needs those contributions they need to take responsibility for updating the license. But we as a community should encourage companies to give back to the OSS projects they benefit from.

Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#13
post #6

This is yet another "We found a community project providing us with billions of dollars in free work but don't find it worth the effort to contribute anything back"

If OSM doesn't want this to happen then OSM can use different license terms.

Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#14
> Ninety-eight percent of drivers who try Lyft’s maps stick with them — rather than switching to Google, Apple, Waze, or any other app.

I find this surprising because my personal experience is the exact opposite. At least in NYC, drivers use the Lyft (or Uber) app for managing riders but use a dedicated mapping application for navigating to the destination once you're picked up.

Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#15
post #6

This is yet another "We found a community project providing us with billions of dollars in free work but don't find it worth the effort to contribute anything back"

Big corps that use OSM are actually contributing a lot back into OSM by actually fixing data issues. I have seen that first-hand; at a Corp that was using OSM, they had a big team doing just that the whole working day. Just fixing issues in OSM that the customer have reported.

I think they in the end decided to fork OSM and make it proprietary to keep the data in-house; but I might be wrong. I was not there anymore.

edit: maybe I am wrong. It was Grab, "uber for Asia". They still edit OSM it seems...

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Grab#Grab_Data_Team

edit2: the users seem to be inactive now, so maybe I was right. I don't know.

edit3: when I look at the corporate members, lots of them seem to be taxi companies. I guess it makes sense. I see Gojek, Grab and Bolt.

https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Corporate_Members

Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#16
post #6

This is yet another "We found a community project providing us with billions of dollars in free work but don't find it worth the effort to contribute anything back"

You think they wanted to own more of their product, integrated OSM, and now if there's complaints or things to change they're like "sorry nah"? That doesn't sound right to me, I'm curious if you have any examples or sources

I think GP is saying they expect Lyft respond to complaints or things to change by fixing them in their internal OSM database, but maybe not propagate those changes back to canonical OSM for everyone else to enjoy.

Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#17
post #3

Does anyone know if Lyft plan to contribute their map corrections back to OSM? They mention other companies doing so in this blog post, but don't make it clear whether or not they, too, intend to. I'm curious to see how good Lyft Maps is, too. Uber Maps is, frankly, a disaster in my area, frequently suggesting illegal and/or impossible turns. I try to submit map feedback every trip (very hard as a rider, as most form…

I also find it consistently obnoxious that there is essentially no way to say "My driver was fine, but your platform did something stupid" when leaving feedback. At least, not without jumping through a million hoops. The arrogance of our industry is tiresome.

I took a ride in SF a while ago and it predicted a 3 minute pick up time which turned out to be 25 minutes - no fault of the driver, and the only way I could complain about this was to click through like 4 levels of "other issue" and then jump through hoops sending emails back and forth with support.

Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#18

> Ninety-eight percent of drivers who try Lyft’s maps stick with them — rather than switching to Google, Apple, Waze, or any other app. I find this surprising because my personal experience is the exact opposite. At least in NYC, drivers use the Lyft (or Uber) app for managing riders but use a dedicated mapping application for navigating to the destination once you're picked up.

And it may be on another device or the car itself so the Lyft app still stays open.

Re: Lyft’s plan to take control of its maps and its future

#19

this is the "Digital Twins" story right here - private corporate walled gardens with total control and feeding off of commons.

That's a curious use of an already established term, "Digital Twin"[0]. A digital twin is a virtual model designed to accurately reflect a physical object.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_twin

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