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Google Maps has become an eyesore

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Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#541

Post by stronglikedan »

JSavageOne wrote: post #521

Criticize Google Maps all you want, but it is easily one of the most useful apps to me, especially as someone who's been been living nomadically the last 5 years. It's kind of scary how dependent I am on this app. Anytime I need to find a restaurant, dentist, electronics store, etc. - I'm looking first on Google Maps and my life is basically dictated by the results. I have lists like "Places to Work" which is a list…

Same. It's one of my pinned app shortcuts that appear on every screen, right next to camera and messages.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#542

Post by Symbiote »

aikinai wrote: post #450
Symbiote wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a large office in London, so their own staff put up with it. I once met a Googler who had previously worked on maps. I made a few grumbles (railway lines at the time were almost invisible, but very useful for orienting yourself when you exit a station, gardens were grey yet parks were green, "Transit" only shows the London Underground so it misses most of the local rail travel routes in South London, etc).…

Actually the teams that would implement those fixes are not really in California (rather Seattle, Sydney, Tokyo, among others), but the problem is more the diffusion of responsibility and lack of ownership. Teams all have different metrics they're trying to drive or features they're focused on, but no one is responsible for the overall quality and user experience of "Google Maps" as a whole. All of the things you men…

The discussion was around 8-10 years ago, so I'm probably mixing it up with Seattle.

Scrolling around the UK with the transit layer active, I only see the complete metro/light rail/tram systems of London and Sheffield (incomplete/missing "heavy rail" for both). Newcastle has one metro line, but not the others. No other city's lines are shown even though the stations/stops are often mapped. (I checked Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham, Nottingham, Blackpool.)

In much of South London "normal" trains are the primary public transport. The stations are marked, the railways shown in light grey, and there are usually even timetables listed [1] but there's no "Transit" line shown. These lines and services aren't shown anywhere in the country.

[2] is a public transport view of OSM. The colours are poor, but the orange lines are mostly missing in Google.

[3] is easier to read but only a railway map, though over 90% of lines in Britain will have passenger service. I generally use this if I'm planning a flexible trip somewhere unfamiliar.

I see some long-distance lines are shown in Japan, though surely only a fraction of what exists. They also get a darker shade of grey, so there's been some local effort there. There are still missing local lines in Tokyo though. I know Copenhagen, and there's been a significant improvement recently! The city/suburban trains are now shown. The regional trains are still missing though, which includes the train from the airport to the city centre.

[1] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Herne+Hill/@51.4521063,-0....

[2] https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=10/51.4095/-0.1868&layers...

[3] https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=10/51.4095/-0.1868&layers...

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#543

Post by dmix »

> Why won’t you show me the street name?

This is my biggest gripe. I get the annoying ad stuff, it is a free service after all. But why do I have to scroll and pinch zoom for 2min trying to find a streetname? And sometimes it just doesnt show up.

Isn't that the most important part of a map?

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#544

Post by hughes »

lopkeny12ko wrote: post #540
Biganon wrote: post #494

> TOO MANY ADS CLUTTER THE MAP ...he complained, in an article on a website where 30% of vertical space is used by an autoplay video ad featuring an idiot asking me whether I'd eat "mustard Skittles". Ironic.

If you're not using an adblocker in this day and age in 2023, you're doing it wrong.

It got through AdGuard on iOS Safari. Is there a better option?

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#545

Post by dmix »

lopkeny12ko wrote: post #540
Biganon wrote: post #494

> TOO MANY ADS CLUTTER THE MAP ...he complained, in an article on a website where 30% of vertical space is used by an autoplay video ad featuring an idiot asking me whether I'd eat "mustard Skittles". Ironic.

If you're not using an adblocker in this day and age in 2023, you're doing it wrong.

Mobile doesn't have ad blocking, at least on iOS. Which is why I pay for Youtube premium.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#546

Post by AlbertCory »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #347
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 know, because they tried to sell it to me when I was at a megacorp, they resell the real time location and local data correlated to user characteristics, as data service to large discrete customers. This includes constant real time information about where people are traveling to, businesses being frequented by demographics, with a sophisticated query interface for asking relatively complex questions of maps derived…

I can honestly say that at the very least, I wasn't aware of that in 2012, IF it was happening. And probably it wasn't.

And in the monetization meetings it was never even discussed.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#547

Post by Symbiote »

perryizgr8 wrote: post #319
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.

Another stupid thing they've done is to use local language for street and place names. Why the hell even have a phone language then? Just switch everything over to whatever language people are speaking in my immediate vicinity then! There is a reason I have chosen English as the language of my phone, because that's what I can read properly.

Do you mean the script/alphabet, or the language?

At some point I noticed someone had "helpfully" translated some concert venue names in Copenhagen into English, so Krudtønden became "The Powder Keg", etc. That's not useful, as locals might well not understand what it means if you ask directions or search for a website. It's on Østerfælled Torv, would you have that read as Eastern Commons Market?

Places with other alphabets seem to vary. Greece shows me only Latin transliterations, but Syria shows me both Latin and Arabic in many cases, which is useful — I can read one, and match the shape of the letters for the other.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#548

Post by Mountain_Skies »

gsuuon wrote: post #474
wredue wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GeForce experience tracks every single window you have open, sending the title and window information, along with every single spot that you click on your screen to Nvidia, tied to your now mandatory account. That was a couple years back. Who knows how much more invasive it’s gotten since. Oh. And this data is considered to be “valuable debugging information”, so is not prevented by opting out of analytics.

There is absolutely no benefit to me the user to force me to create an account. What a deeply frustrating user experience (especially when I have to dig around for my password just to update a graphics driver?!) I hope someone wakes up at Nvidia and removes the account requirement. Why do they even do it?

Nvidia is on top of the world right now and companies on the rise often make really stupid long-term customer alienating decisions. Nvidia won't miss any on of as an individual customer at all. For these types of situations, usually at some point the things that were pushing the company upwards slow or stop while the damage from their arrogance accumulates enough to start causing real harm. After some foot dragging and false reforms, the company eventually has to do something to repair the damage and by then, those who enacted those policies are usually gone.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#549

Post by fnordpiglet »

AlbertCory wrote: post #546
fnordpiglet wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know, because they tried to sell it to me when I was at a megacorp, they resell the real time location and local data correlated to user characteristics, as data service to large discrete customers. This includes constant real time information about where people are traveling to, businesses being frequented by demographics, with a sophisticated query interface for asking relatively complex questions of maps derived…

I can honestly say that at the very least, I wasn't aware of that in 2012, IF it was happening. And probably it wasn't. And in the monetization meetings it was never even discussed.

This was in 2019 and it was a new product.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#550

Post by bluGill »

pessimizer wrote: post #523
gardenhedge wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

surely google employees can't look up peoples locations..

Surely they can. Who would be locking them out? Another google employee. So the useful questions are which google employees can look up people's locations, and through what process?

Some people need to be able to do that as part of their job. Either directly for some good reason, or indirectly (they are a DB admin). The question is what controls they have to ensure only those people can look such things up and that they don't abuse those rights.
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