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

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

#81

Post by LeFantome »

patrickserrano wrote: post #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.

If what you say is true, the Lyft app may still be using the Lyft map. That would lead Lyft to conclude that drivers were using their map.

Another open application or another device would not show up in the Lyft analytics.

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

#82

Post by generativeai »

Sound like the company has not invented here syndrome. Maps is largely solved problem. Mapbox has a great product that is customizable.

Perhaps the company could better spend their R&D to focus on products that directly imoroves it's market share and revenue.

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

#83

Post by humanistbot »

minhazm wrote: post #79
londons_explore wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that OP can see "finding another driver" 8 times suggests that perhaps there is some prioritization system, and OP was low priority - such that if any other request came in before him, then the driver would be re-routed.

It's much simpler than that. Drivers accept and then they cancel the ride themselves if they don't like the destination or the earnings. Normally you would penalize those drivers but I imagine with Lyft losing market share they likely can't afford to penalize drivers all that much.

No, drivers don't see the destination until they arrive and the trip begins.

I'm often on one side of the Bay Area trying to get to the other and had many drivers pull up, then cancel or try to get me to cancel when they see I'm going across the Bay.

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

#84

Post by codethief »

hinkley wrote: post #74
DoctorOW wrote: 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 really wish that companies had a donation program where employees get to vote on their favorite project, and the company cuts a check every time a project hits 50 votes (including things that got 20 votes each for the last 3 election cycles)

We have something like this at our firm (IT consulting shop). Every Christmas, everyone gets to propose & vote on projects (software and otherwise) that we should fund.

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

#85

Post by RobotToaster »

Twirrim wrote: post #49
acslater00 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lyft contributed essentially everything back to OSM

So this is another example of HN commenters getting up on their high horse before gathering facts? Say it isn't so!

Honestly you would think Lyft would be more explicit about contributing back in their article.

This isn't the first time I've seen a company contributing back to open source but completely neglecting to mention it in their post about it. It's weird, usually companies love to virtue signal about any tiny thing they do for society.

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

#86

Post by LeFantome »

otterley wrote: post #23

The tone of this article is troubling. First, the focus is on savings to Lyft, and not how this innovation benefits customers in any way. Second, it is highly antagonistic to Google - who is probably still a partner to Lyft in many other aspects (advertising etc). Taking shots at your partners is generally considered bad for business.

The article I read talked a lot about the benefits to drivers. That translates fairly directly to the service being offered to customers. Having your driver more easily figure out where to pick you up or drop you off is a huge service win for customers. Keeping your driver more focussed on navigation translates not only to better trips but safer ones as well. The statement was that they did not want to rely on a 3rd party to generate 90% of the pixels your customers are looking at. How did you miss all this customer focus? I am not sure it is fair to say this was all about profit juicing for Lyft.

My issue with the article is just the mind-boggling premise that leveraging an Open Source mapping project is “the impossible” vs using Google Maps. Also, there are lots of other options including of course ESRI.

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

#87

Post by pietervdvn »

Scoundreller wrote: post #57
pietervdvn wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Map Traps (as these are called) are normally pretty harmless, e.g. a non-existent, small cul-de-sac that doesn't exist. A turn restriction (which is quite invisible!) seldom is.

Meanwhile, in Toronto, I see some bigger driveways listed as roads on Google maps, and I always wonder if it’s a legally correct city survey artefact and I could park a car there etc. if I wanted, or just a trap/misclassification. https://maps.app.goo.gl/CXRh6LFRhgZo1P9k8?g_st=ic

Yeah, good question. Whether it was intentional or not, it still acts as good Map Trap

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

#89

Post by ghaff »

dylan604 wrote: post #78
londons_explore wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At airports, its often much better to walk just outside the boundary of the airport. Airports often have special rules, pickup fees, etc. Drivers don't want to pay an $8 fee just to make a loss on your journey. As soon as you're a few yards out of the airport, none of that applies and a driver will be happy to take you.

>its often much better to walk just outside the boundary of the airport are you serious? what airports do you visit where you can do this as a suggestion without laughing. It's like telling the freshmen that there's a pool on the school roof. even something as small like a Bob Hope in Burbank would be difficult. Most airports do not consider pedestrian traffic to the edge of their properties. I've done it once at tha…

Walking out of an airport of any size (and even many/most smaller commercial airports) is between impossible and taking your life in your hands given that sidewalks/crosswalks/etc. are largely lacking. Most commercial airports just don't contemplate pedestrians walking in and out. It might be possible to walk to East Boston from Logan airport though I'm not sure how--and that's an airport that's basically right in the city.

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

#90

Post by NelsonMinar »

acslater00 wrote: post #40
bri3d wrote: 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…

Yes - Lyft contributed the overwhelming majority of the new data back into OSM. The only exceptions were layers that didn't meet OSM community standards for various technical reasons. Source - I led this team

Thanks for making the contributions, we all benefit!
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