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Google Maps has become an eyesore

fastcompany.com

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Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#101

Post by danielhep »

hedora wrote: post #88
AlbertCory wrote: post #34

I worked on Google Maps monetization, and then on Maps itself. Monetization was a dismal failure. I don't know how well they're doing now, but Maps was a gigantic money-loser, forever. I'd be a little surprised if it didn't still lose money, but maybe less. I don't what those "pin ads" cost, but I'd bet it's way less than a search ad. If you don't believe that, that's fine. "What about indirect revenue?" you ask? Goo…

The main reason degoogled android doesn’t work is because of the (terrible) design of the android location services and maps APIs. I’m not sure who that drives revenue for, though. I switched back to iPhone over this. I strongly prefer Here We Go to Apple Maps, and it is available on Android. (Open platform, my ass…)

Been trying to use GrapheneOS for a while with their Google Play Services location services shim and it does seem to be fully dependent on GPS.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#102

Post by londons_explore »

hedora wrote: post #88
AlbertCory wrote: post #34

I worked on Google Maps monetization, and then on Maps itself. Monetization was a dismal failure. I don't know how well they're doing now, but Maps was a gigantic money-loser, forever. I'd be a little surprised if it didn't still lose money, but maybe less. I don't what those "pin ads" cost, but I'd bet it's way less than a search ad. If you don't believe that, that's fine. "What about indirect revenue?" you ask? Goo…

The main reason degoogled android doesn’t work is because of the (terrible) design of the android location services and maps APIs. I’m not sure who that drives revenue for, though. I switched back to iPhone over this. I strongly prefer Here We Go to Apple Maps, and it is available on Android. (Open platform, my ass…)

Google play services API's are deliberately designed to be hard to reimplement by third parties. In the case of maps, the placeId of every business or POI is internal to Google, and no other provider can give you a map for a matching placeId.

It's no accident.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#103

Post by szundi »

danjc wrote: post #82
tjbiddle wrote: post #60

What drives me nuts is using the "Search this area" feature once I zoom in. Especially if there's an add anywhere in a 20mi radius. Google Maps usually shows far too much stuff, so I zoom into the area where I am and want to just search that square so I can browse the list easier. But then it'll zoom out and auto-select the first ad miles away - completely defeating the purpose.

Absence of street names is not accidental. I wonder if the theory is that leaving them off is more likely to ensure you remain dependent on the app.

These desperate antifeatures drive me crazy these days

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#104

Post by Ocean7585 »

brucethemoose2 wrote: post #63
zer0zzz wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow AdGuard on mobile didn’t filter this horrible shit for me

Bromite didn't get it either. I think its a 1st party autoplay video?

Bromite is at this point abandonware, try Cromite instead

https://github.com/uazo/cromite

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#105

Post by beej71 »

memefrog wrote: post #84
xcdzvyn wrote: post #9

It's inflammatory, but this website is worse. There's some video playing of a stranger eating mustard skittles taking up the bottom quarter of the screen.

Why would you not have ublock origin installed?

I do, but it doesn't stop this particular ad. It's an internal ad.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#106

Post by acherion »

rlv-dan wrote: post #72

If you are looking for an alternative navigation app I can recommend giving Magic Earth a try. Simple, clear and free. Nice developers that answers your mail. It even supports Android Auto. https://www.magicearth.com

Is this app only available in the US app store or something? I tried on my iOS device here in Australia, and a whole heap of other mapping apps are appearing in search results instead, when the query string is "magic earth". iOS App Store is even autocompleting to "magic earth navigation & apps" but no Magic Earth app appears in the results.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#107

Post by beej71 »

Trying out Organic Maps, I noticed two big things:

1. Man, this UI is so much faster than Google Maps.

2. Man, this has trouble finding addresses.

Hopefully they improve with time.

On my older laptop at home, Google Maps is horribly sluggish compared to just about any other map product.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#108

Post by dpacmittal »

eisa01 wrote: post #97

Navigation in cities has also started to become a problem in the last decade, as more and more cities try to reduce car traffic E.g., there's a "no car" street near me where the access restrictions are not on Google Maps. I've submitted the changes a month ago, to no avail. I resubmitted a week ago, as I could not find any trace of my reports. The restrictions can be seen on the past 3+ years of Streetview footage...…

I've noticed gmaps has stopped providing optimal routes when navigating. Just yesterday I was driving to the airport and it showed me a very unusual route which it has never recommended before, the time to destination was 1h30min. It was strange because the usual route doesn't usually have traffic, so I decided to take the usual route instead. The time dropped to 1h10min. For the rest of the route it kept showing me unusual routes and I kept ignoring it taking the usual route instead.

At one point it started showing time to destination at 1h50min. It took me 1h and I had to ignore the gmaps at least 5 times until there was no alternate route available.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#110

Post by makeitdouble »

dietr1ch wrote: post #89
AlbertCory wrote: post #34

I worked on Google Maps monetization, and then on Maps itself. Monetization was a dismal failure. I don't know how well they're doing now, but Maps was a gigantic money-loser, forever. I'd be a little surprised if it didn't still lose money, but maybe less. I don't what those "pin ads" cost, but I'd bet it's way less than a search ad. If you don't believe that, that's fine. "What about indirect revenue?" you ask? Goo…

If google can't make money with maps, why isn't Maps taken out of google into a charity/non-profit backed thing. There's OpenStreetMap, and Wikipedia wouldn't mind having a Map I guess. That way it'd help a bit with the monopoly heat and maintaining it could be slightly cheaper. I don't know the legal stuff, but I'd rather have a company supporting a non-profit than burning money internally, so I hope the incentives…

＞ What about indirect revenue

This part is probably what keeps Maps valuable as an asset, and it's such a huge moat that letting it go would be irreversible. Building a similar product from scratch takes tremendous capital and local deals, we've seen how much of an effort it is for Apple to even have a viable product, coming up with a competitive offering would require double that.

Even if all counted for Maps was net 0 in the balance sheet, I feel there would be no Google CEO agreeing to let it go just for antitrust relief. They'd probably let Youtube become independant before that.

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