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Google Decides to Monetize Maps

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Re: Google Decides to Monetize Maps

#131

Post by xemoka »

sabareesh wrote: post #75
JohnFen wrote: post #66

I stopped using Google Maps a few years back. I received a notification on my phone that a store I was near was having a sale. It was clear that something was leaking my location, and that was being used to push ads to me through Android itself. A little investigation revealed that the culprit was Google Maps. I uninstalled it at that point and never looked back.

So what do you use now

Check out maps.me for iOS and Android -> Open source, uses OpenStreetMap data (you can fix it!), offline maps with regular updates.

Re: Google Decides to Monetize Maps

#132

Post by kmonsen »

est31 wrote: post #99
orev wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wall St only cares about growth. If you make $100B profit two quarters in a row, that’s 0% growth and you’re dead to them. The approach makes sense with smaller companies, but it seems to kill those who reach global dominance.

Obligatory Peter Thiel statement on this (2012): https://youtu.be/2Q26XIKtwXQ?t=195 > Google is no longer a technology company, and [...] it's basically [...] a search engine. The search technology was developed a decade ago, it's a bet that [...] no one else will come up with a better search technology so you invest in Google because you're betting against technological innovation in search, and it's like [...] a ba…

It's also not true, Apple is paying dividends and still valued as a technology company (and both Google and Apple clearly are in tech, dividends or not).

Re: Google Decides to Monetize Maps

#133

Post by manigandham »

JohnFen wrote: post #68
technotony wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should they offer a free maps service? They are a business with shareholder responsibilities, not a charity, and maps must cost them a ton of money to operate.

I don't think the issue is monetization. I think the issue is the method of monetization. Doing something like offering paid enhancements, or even an option to pay in exchange for being omitted from the ad network, would be more acceptable.

Have you tried Google Contributor: https://contributor.google.com/v/beta

Re: Google Decides to Monetize Maps

#134

Post by pas »

rootusrootus wrote: post #127
nullc wrote: post #29

Maps has been awful and getting worse for a long time. If it's not routing me 25+ miles further to save "1 minute" (really a multi-minute slowdown in the 90th percentile) then its failing to give comprehensible directions in order to interpose business names. Maybe the monetization is finally makes competing with it attractive enough.

What killed GMaps for me was the dogged insistence that the correct route through the city involves making left turns onto busy multilane roads at rush hour from a side street with a stop sign, just to avoid a half-block of stopped traffic waiting for a left turn signal.

Interestingly I started using GMaps instead of Waze exactly for this. Waze loves sightseeing and meeting new people on cozy little streets.

Re: Google Decides to Monetize Maps

#135

Post by aw3c2 »

julkali wrote: post #102
ketcomp wrote: post #94

I only have Google Maps on my phone because I am location sharing with my family. Is there an alternative? I will gladly uninstall it then.

There are always alternatives. For Maps, check out .) OsmAnd ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.osmand ) .) MAPS.ME ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mapswithme... ) For other alternatives to avoid getting your habits turned into money by big companies, check out https://ethical.net/

I am not aware of a live location sharing function in OsmAnd.

Re: Google Decides to Monetize Maps

#136

Post by ddalex »

Gene_Parmesan wrote: post #45
technotony wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should they offer a free maps service? They are a business with shareholder responsibilities, not a charity, and maps must cost them a ton of money to operate.

It isn't free. They're already monetizing your location data.

They have altered the monetization. Pray they don't alter it further.

Re: Google Decides to Monetize Maps

#137

Post by rkagerer »

dininski wrote: post #4

I can't stress enough how much of a bad idea this is. I was stunned when a few days ago I was looking up something on Google Maps and started seeing advertised locations/suggestions. Even though I love the product and have been a fan of Google products for the longest time, their current strategy of monetizing everything they can is very off putting. The direction Chrome is taking is also concerning. Don't know what…

Well said. Thanks Google for cluttering my life with more unwanted spam.

I used to think of the Google brand very highly. Lately my subconscious associates it with the expectation of a sub-par user experience and some slightly creepy tendencies.

Re: Google Decides to Monetize Maps

#138

Post by Sylos »

ketcomp wrote: post #94

I only have Google Maps on my phone because I am location sharing with my family. Is there an alternative? I will gladly uninstall it then.

I have actually never shared my location, so no idea what features one might want for that, but this one is open-source, so relatively trustworthy: https://f-droid.org/app/ca.cmetcalfe.locationshare

Re: Google Decides to Monetize Maps

#139

Post by hi5eyes »

gowld wrote: post #83
cageface wrote: post #17

Google is really leaving the door open here for Apple to step in and offer a services bundle with a monthly fee that doesn’t involve stuffing advertising into every nook and cranny of the user experience. I generally prefer Google’s services to Apple’s but there might be a tipping point soon where I’m willing to sacrifice some features in exchange for a generally less creepy product.

Apple gets the wealthy high margin market, Google gets the mass market. People buy iPhones to keep up with fashion, but most of them won't pay for maps because they can't show that off to their acquaintances.

>People buy iPhones to keep up with fashion, but most of them won't pay for maps because they can't show that off to their acquaintances.

juvenile take, didnt realize people still went with the apple logo meme argument

Re: Google Decides to Monetize Maps

#140

Post by mythz »

bhhaskin wrote: post #78
taurath wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What changed over the last 10 years, and why wasn’t it monetized earlier? Maybe because then they wanted to make a useful service and get some data for their search ads, and now they just want more money.

They ran all of their competition out of business.

Google Maps was a revolutionary product that popularized the category, they had no competition when it was released, at least now there's Apple Maps, Open Street Map, Bing Maps, Tencent Maps.

I was developing with ESRI ArcGIS at the time, ESRI was a multi-billion dollar GEO company who had no product that even came close to the instant utility Google Maps launched with.

The only other product that had a similar "Wow" factor around the same time was Keyhole which we were using before Google acquired them and used it to launch "Google Earth".

If anything Google Maps spawned competition in the last decade, the existing competitors like ESRI are still developing their GEO products for Internal/Enterprise use, but now there are a number of competing consumer mapping services that provide the same utility and functionality of Google Maps from large technology companies that didn't have GEO as part of their competency like: Apple Maps, Bing Maps and Tencent Maps.

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