Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

lyft.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 181 posts

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

#101

Post by pimlottc »

ryandrake wrote: post #27
sushisource wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 co…

Pick up time predictions are garbage, because ride shares allow cancelations. Last time I used a ride share, I had eight drivers accept and then cancel on me. The predicted departure time was always "8 minutes away" and then "looking for another driver" over and over. I probably waited an hour.

> Pick up time predictions are garbage

This boils me to no end. Google Maps estimates often make rideshare look like a timesaver compared to transit, but when you add five, ten, even fifteen minutes to the pickup estimate, it really changes things.

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

#102

Post by 29083011397778 »

bredren wrote: post #24
imbusy111 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was impossible a few years ago, when the OSM data wasn't good enough and the cost of acquiring the data themselves was too high.

I have thought that some major service migrated to OSM by 2019. I can’t remember which, or even if it was a success. But I didn’t realize the data was that bad just three years ago. Then again, Apple Maps started getting sorted out around then too iirc.

> Then again, Apple Maps started getting sorted out around then too iirc.

And we assume completely coincidentally? Not that Apple Maps, like Google Maps, pulls in data volunteered by the OSM community (both corporate and personal members), packages and improves (sometimes "improves") it, then locks it away behind paid API calls?

In this case and many others, the free and community built project enabled, assisted, or powered the multi-billion dollar tech conglomorate.

I recognize I might sound bitter or dismissive of companies mapping the world and giving it away to consumers for free, but so much is built on openness that so many companies just eat without giving back.

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

#103

Post by shawabawa3 »

humanistbot wrote: post #83
minhazm wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My assumption was that most drivers are using 3+ different apps, so if they get an Uber request while they're driving a Lyft route they just don't accept it, hence the bouncing around "finding another driver" because all the drivers are already busy

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

#104

Post by sushid »

ccooffee wrote: post #4

> By late 2019, Lorimer and Justin Moore, then the head of engineering, were ready to form a team to “do the impossible” — create a home-grown mapping system. THE IMPOSSIBLE: A "home-grown" mapping system built on OpenStreetMaps? Lyft seems to really lack any imagination if _that_ was considered impossible.

What's more shocking is that they decided using 250 high paid EPD workers to not pay a Google Map licensing was the way to go.

They could have incubated at least 10 different products during this critical time.

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

#105

Post by LynxInLA »

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…

It is very easy at LAX. You walk about 100 yards across one (admittedly very busy) intersection and get picked up for 1/3 the price. You already have to take a shuttle to even get picked up unless you have a black car, so this adds 5 minutes. It is still annoying if you have luggage.

You could also take a shuttle to a local hotel or car rental, but that is breaking some rules.

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

#106

Post by marcinzm »

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.

That statistics really makes me wonder if this is a NYC only thing or if Lyft is that disconnected it's own user base.

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

#107

Post by idiotsecant »

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

If you had any pull in that decision, well done. You made the world a little bit better for everyone. Can't ask for much more than that sometimes.

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

#109

Post by lowbloodsugar »

sushid wrote: post #104
ccooffee wrote: post #4

> By late 2019, Lorimer and Justin Moore, then the head of engineering, were ready to form a team to “do the impossible” — create a home-grown mapping system. THE IMPOSSIBLE: A "home-grown" mapping system built on OpenStreetMaps? Lyft seems to really lack any imagination if _that_ was considered impossible.

What's more shocking is that they decided using 250 high paid EPD workers to not pay a Google Map licensing was the way to go. They could have incubated at least 10 different products during this critical time.

Given that Lyft's only rival, Uber, is partnering with Google's Waymo, seems like a prescient move to get out from Google's thumb.

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

#110

Post by sp8962 »

pookha wrote: post #95

I like OpenStreetMaps but any business that uses them in their core app should be prepared for some wild shenanigans: https://mashable.com/article/mapbox-antisemitic-vandalism-sn... Facebook uses OpenStreetMaps and I'm pretty sure they had to design their own batch processes to validate that area's of interest weren't renamed racial slurs or for Pokimon creatures.

That was an issue because of the validation pipeline Mapbox was using at the time, the vandalism had long been fixed in OpenStreetMap proper when the story hit the news.

So, yes, you are going to need to make a trade off between potentially more incidents, but faster repair, and less incidents, but being stuck with your current validated release for a while if something goes wrong.

PS: it is OpenStreetMap, no plural "s"

PPS: Meta produces a publicly available validated version of OSM data.

Post reply on HN