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Google Maps' Moat

justinobeirne.com

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Re: Google Maps' Moat

#181

Post by ucaetano »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #69
ucaetano wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

?? Would you invest your retirement savings into a company that plans to return no profit by mapping the world and releasing the data for free? I thought so.

Well, I'd invest my time. I've worked on OSM, AFAIK I've got nothing back from having done so other than learning a little about maps. Your position is flawed, because you're focussing on a single element of a social system. If I invest in mapping, it doesn't remove resources, it improves them for everyone. Without the waste of resources of solely profit-driven activity then we have ample resources to meet basic need…

"Time from volunteers" isn't enough to buy satellite images, cars with cameras, airplanes with cameras, etc.

We're not talking about a bunch of people pitching in some time as they feel about doing it, we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars (probably more) spent on this.

But, as you wouldn't invest your retirement funds in such a company, why would you expect others to do so?

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#182

Post by ucaetano »

paloaltokid wrote: post #119
ucaetano wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the awkward failures of capitalism, I guess. No, it's actually a feature: competition. With a single product in every category it would be impossible to have diversity of ideas being tested and competing. It is the same with evolution.

Not so fast! Competition only makes sense if you’re competing on the right things. Railroads should compete on service, quality and price. They should not compete by laying down parallel tracks side by side. Some things should be shared in common and competitive services built on top.

> Some things should be shared in common and competitive services built on top.

Only when the existence of one incumbent inhibits the entrance of new ones, like physical infrastructure and natural monopolies.

As you can see, there is an abundance of mapping services. So yeah, competition is working great here.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#183

Post by lifeformed »

chaostheory wrote: post #16

I'm still wondering why Waze doesn't incorporate Google Maps data and Google Maps doesn't incorporate Waze traffic data? Or does this already happen since Google has owned Waze for a while now? If not, I find it strange for the two to continue to be silo'd.

Check this out: https://www.google.com/maps/@47.0826736,-122.677911,16z/data...

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#184

Post by mastax »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #115
mastax wrote: post #63

Great article, but it has me thinking: what is holding Apple back? My ideas: - Apple is just a few years behind; they launched a decade later. Come back in 3 years and they'll be close to parity. - Apple only needs Maps to be good enough to avoid PR disaster, since they need a reasonable default on iOS. On the other hand Google needs to be good enough to beat competitors since they want to make money on traffic, usag…

>Apple is just a few years behind; they launched a decade later. Come back in 3 years and they'll be close to parity. So you expect Google to stand around for 3 or more years while Apple comes close to parity with Google today?

My heuristic is that it's usually faster to catch-up to something that already exists than it is to invent something new. Given sufficient effort Apple should be able to asymptotically approach Google's capabilities. But considering the other two points I mentioned, it's not a given that they will.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#185

Post by an_account »

I've been finding that Google Maps has better getting worse in the last year or so at giving simple directions. Their turn-by-turn interface and algorithms have lead to many frustrating situations that it just didn't do before.

For example I often find it recalculating my route to a side road, exit, or different freeway even though I was driving on the highlighted path. If I don't watch carefully, and don't notice it happening, I'll follow it off on some crazy recalculated route.

I've switched to Apple Maps when not routing to a complex building, like a giant mall. Apple Maps' routing and turn-by-turn has really improved in the last couple years.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#187

Post by jjeaff »

irrational wrote: post #133

One thing I really appreciate about Google Maps is how accurate the times are. There have been numerous times where google maps says is will take x minutes to get there and I think "Nah, I'll be able to get there faster than that." Nope, I've never had google maps be off by more than a minute or so. I think it must take into account not just road conditions and traffic, but also how much I am likely to go over the sp…

I think it is actually not a highly complex algo. They have enough data to simply look at people who took the exact same or almost the same trip at the same time of day. Mix that with a bit of user provided traffic data to make sure it is similar to the comparisons and viola.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#188

Post by jjeaff »

GeneralMayhem wrote: post #162
irrational wrote: post #133

One thing I really appreciate about Google Maps is how accurate the times are. There have been numerous times where google maps says is will take x minutes to get there and I think "Nah, I'll be able to get there faster than that." Nope, I've never had google maps be off by more than a minute or so. I think it must take into account not just road conditions and traffic, but also how much I am likely to go over the sp…

The crazy thing to me is that it's pretty decent at estimating even in dynamic traffic conditions. Consider US101 in the Bay area at rush hour - if you leave San Jose around 6pm, you'll drive straight into traffic, but by the time you get to SF it'll be significantly lighter. A lesser algorithm would give you a time prediction based on current traffic speeds at all points along your path, which would give you a wildl…

I just figure they are using the average of other people who took the exact same trip last week when conditions were similar.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#189

Post by snarf »

sytelus wrote: post #142

Many people don't realize why Google maps are so much better than anything out there. I would actually give lot of credit to Marissa Mayer who suddenly became in charge of maps from otherwise more higher position. Thanks to her influence in Google SLT and ability to make impressive arguments, she was able to make a case for maps as core pillar in Google's offering and consequently obtain huge investment and large tal…

Google has plenty of low revenue, unprofitable products, some of which are social charities like Google Scholar. I don't think Mayer deserves as much credit as a visionary as you are suggesting. It was more about empire building after a sudden demotion and not paying increasing licensing costs to a third party vendor for turn-by-turn data. But I agree that the end result is a mapping platform that is far ahead of anyone else thanks to Google's significant investment and resources.

I don't expect Google to pull its map app from iOS because it is a very valuable demographic to collect data from and target. Also, Apple already has a large hole on its balance sheet trying to catch up to Google in mapping. It started around the time they very publicly fired Forstall for the whole iOS 6 maps fiasco.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#190

Post by code_duck »

golfer wrote: post #172
klodolph wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why this would be a problem. Apple Maps is not competing with Google Maps. Apple Maps is simply there so Apple can provide turn-by-turn navigation out of the box without paying Google for it. The fact that Google Maps is free to consumers is irrelevant, because it's not free for Apple to bundle with iOS.

> because it's not free for Apple to bundle with iOS Would love to see a citation for that. Wouldn't Google want to boost maps usage on iOS?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/06/09/apple-is... mentions that, and links to this: https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/03/30/google-m...

I didn’t follow all the links, but apparently this was referenced in a court case.

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