Google Maps has become an eyesore • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#431

Post by fnordpiglet » Mon, Aug 07, 2023, 1:07 PM UTC

lost_tourist wrote: post #422

fnordpiglet wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming here you consider the users giving up their privacy as the primary product being sold in maps.

This seems wrong. I don't think the average business owner has the capability to reverse engineer the anonymous tokens that represent hash IDs. Also, it's good to go in and reset that occasionally with Google. I gave up on it and switched to apple, tho. Far as I can tell, they don't ever sell that info, even in anonymous hash # form. I'm happy to be proven wrong other than "wHy wOuLd yOu tRuSt aPPle?" .

This wasn’t a product for the average business owner, it was for megacorps to make strategic decisions with.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_re-identification

That said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_privacy

However it wasn’t clear how high quality the differential privacy algorithm was or if it was attackable. But the nefariousness of its use against groups and demographics was fairly apparent.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#432

Post by aikinai » Mon, Aug 07, 2023, 1:07 PM UTC

stiray wrote: post #373

runeks wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. And not just that, but also the fact that people use Google Maps for car navigation means Google can derive the location of traffic jams by comparing current speed with the speed limit. This is hugely useful for navigation since it means these bottlenecks can be avoided, some thing which is not possible unless this data is available.

If I present you the other side of the coin - we are a small country, where we cant keep up with number of cars of tourists traveling to the next country over summer. Since the Google Maps is here, not only we have a completely congested highways but also all other roads that were free of tourists before are now blocked. Tourists that are traveling to the next country while their number has doubled as they dont stand…

This is a real issue, but it has nothing to do with Google specifically. You’re basically saying that information on road networks should be obscured or restricted so governments can indirectly control the flow of traffic.

Japan actually has some soft regulations in this space about routing and road visibility (e.g. residential roads are hidden when you’re on thoroughfares). But they’re just suggestions so only domestic companies follow them and Google, Apple, etc still provide their usual global algorithms.

Maybe there’s a good solution to this, but I don’t think it’s getting rid of mapping services and going back to security through obscurity.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#433

Post by pydry » Mon, Aug 07, 2023, 1:08 PM UTC

TheRealSteel wrote: post #420

h1fra wrote: post #264

I understand the ads and everything else, I don't not enjoy it but I understand. What I really don't get is the product is hiding a lot of stuff for no reason. Whenever I zoom in my neighbourhood: it doesn't display all the streets, some shops are missing even at maximum zoom, search is removing some results that should match my query, etc... I have slowly lost trust in the products (except for navigation), it's stil…

I'm always so annoyed at Google Maps for not displaying street names. Sometimes it doesn't matter how much you zoom or pan, it just won't show it. I know it knows them because it announces them just fine during navigation. Why? What's the point? It's a map. Street names are pretty much the #1 most important thing.

If organic maps did traffic, reviews and opening hours I'd never touch google maps again. Literally everything else is worse.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#434

Post by wredue » Mon, Aug 07, 2023, 1:10 PM UTC

saiya-jin wrote: post #278

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peole forget that millions of people submit data to Google Maps for free. I placed all the local postboxes on google maps, people sibmit information about their businesss, opening hours, etc. This is hugely valuable. Also google grew laxy. Not tskes them a year to add a royal mail postbox

Also, everybody by default shares their location when using it, no? So they get live feedback on traffic relatively for free (till some lawsuit will ban it). I can see it often changing and recalculating as I drive, albeit with some lag. I don't think you can estimate overall worth of Maps to Google directly and easily. Its still #1 driving solution I use, its not perfect in dense traffic in cities but otherwise OK a…

iPhone and android phones share your location with apple and google constantly regardless of if you’re in maps or not.

Google does not need maps to have traffic data.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#435

Post by aikinai » Mon, Aug 07, 2023, 1:11 PM UTC

wildrhythms wrote: post #302

cpeterso wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume people on the Google Maps team use Google Maps in their daily lives. Do they not feel the UX friction from all the ad-centric design?

All the VPs and directors use iPhones.

But still loaded with Google products, especially Maps.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#436

Post by ygra » Mon, Aug 07, 2023, 1:11 PM UTC

walthamstow wrote: post #159

khazhoux wrote: post #41

> Why won't you show me the street name? I've been running into this a lot lately. No matter how much I zoom -- no street name. This is Mapping 101.

It's really bad in London. Instead of telling you the road is called Oxford Street (quite a famous road!) it shows instead the road number, A40, which is not known by 95% of the local population, nor by 100% of visitors.

Looking at Google Maps you get the feeling it's optimized for being a road atlas for long-distance driving. There's so few details on the maps and basically the only thing visible is the road network (and businesses) until about zoom level 17.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#437

Post by wakeupcall » Mon, Aug 07, 2023, 1:13 PM UTC

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…

I was working on web maps before google maps steamrolled (effectively killed) the competition. The big thing for us was that we couldn't compete with the storage and licensing requirements for satellite imagery. I suspect it was the same for other local competitors at the time: our local data was objectively better, but google's was just sexier, and you couldn't compete with free.

I've long since switched fields, but the irony is that the company I was working for survived and I heard maps for various business use is now much more expensive than our offer used to be and several large clients eventually switched back.

As a user, I loved maps when it came out. The pre-rendered tiled maps were clean and fast. The web UI was clean and responsive. Streetview was (and still is) absolutely mind boggling. Heck, I even applied to work for google maps at the time.

Nowdays maps is an absolute shitshow. I find it utterly unusable for almost any purpose except for streetview, which is the only reason I still know how it looks like.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#438

Post by gpvos » Mon, Aug 07, 2023, 1:13 PM UTC

jakear wrote: post #361

coldtea wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because 99% of normal people "don't refill their water bottles" (and surely not off of water fountains), just buy bottled water and/or drink when they stop at cafes and restaurants? Not saying it's good. In fact, it's quite bad and harmful. But it just is.

Nah, it's just that 99% of people aren't so chronically online as to need a web service to find out how to freely drink water in a place with free water drinking infrastructure.

Well, maybe because I wasn't born there, but they're not always in the most obvious locations to me.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#439

Post by hospitalJail » Mon, Aug 07, 2023, 1:13 PM UTC

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?

iphone problems :(

Glad its just a work phone.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#440

Post by nicce » Mon, Aug 07, 2023, 1:14 PM UTC

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #414

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.

Brave + PiHole + uBlock Origin = no video ad, no top banner ad Firefox + PiHole + no extensions = dumbass video, blank top banner ad (all the space is taken up but no content)

Just to be fair, uBlock on Firefox removes it as well. Just to note, that Brave is adding nothing here.