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Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

joemorrison.substack.com

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Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#201

Post by hundchenkatze »

tracker1 wrote: post #182
julianlam wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, of course, except that the decision-making has shifted towards priorities that do not benefit the customer, though they used to. I have no interest in seeing where the nearest McDonalds is, unless I search for it. POI markers for places I need to go (via bookings/appointments) are good, but POIs for places I have never been are bad. For whatever reason I can never see the street name I want to see anymore. Betwe…

I would say the other POI markers do serve one value, and that is with regards to finding a place... if you notice it's right behind the McDonalds, then you know you are close when you see the big M from the street. Similar for strip malls.

That's true, but it's not Google's intent. It's just another source of ad/promotional revenue. The POIs show up before I search anything. A more user focused solution would wait until I selected a destination, detect that where I'm going is a less frequented, and then display something along the lines of "Hey it looks like this location can be difficult to find, here's some near by stores to look for ."

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#202

Post by Someone »

Lio wrote: post #167
nikodunk wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since they added biking directions in the city I live, I've managed to switch to Apple Maps full-time! Just recently completed a cross country drive with only Apple maps - works really well. Of course now I've locked myself even further into the Apple's ecosystem, but at least my maps are smooth and minimal for now...

Apple’s approach to cycling directions is second rate IMHO. It’s only available in certain media city locations. If you stray out of those areas you’re out of luck. Basically Apple seem more interested in rolling this out as a tick box item for journalists than helping me get to work. This tells me that Apple is not serious about its Maps app.

So, say they wanted to support this for most of the world, what would look different to outsiders?

Waiting to support part of the world until they can support all of the targeted regions would deprive users of data they have for, I guess, years.

So, it should be a gradual rollout. Where should they start? I would think it’s easiest in richer countries, where it’s easier to obtain reliable data, and updates thereof.

Also, denser population areas likely give them most bang for the buck (getting many happy users as fast as possible seems necessary to me when discussing the success of the Maps app with senior management)

Because of those arguments, I don’t see whether that would look much different from what’s happening now.

So, I don’t see how one can conclude they aren’t serious about the Maps app or cycle paths.

Of course, things would be different if we had data telling us they don’t plan to get large coverage, slowed down or even stopped data gathering. I am not aware of either, though. It would be nice to have a history of the info on https://www.apple.com/ios/feature-availability, to see what, if any, progress they make.

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#203

Post by tracker1 »

sub7 wrote: post #63

Can't think of a product they've fucked up more with every iteration than Maps. Could argue Search here but Maps has been absurd. It started around the time they were pushing Material design and hasn't stopped since then.

Google assistant, especially in concert with maps/directions is pretty F'd up the past couple months... it's nearly unusable, and definitely not something you can use in a car with voice commands anymore.

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#204

Post by hundchenkatze »

jeffbee wrote: post #189
treis wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GMail is there mostly as a legacy of a time when Google had legit competition from portal sites like Yahoo and MSN. E-mail was an important part of that portal and GMail was a way to siphon some users.

You can make up as many fictional backstories as you want, but gmail was launched because signed-in users enjoy vastly better search quality and prior to gmail there was no reason to associate your identity with Google.

You don't need to be signed-in to track someone with a cookie and provide targeted search results.

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#205

Post by entee »

stiray wrote: post #187
alasdair_ wrote: post #173

I worked at a company that heavily used the maps API in 2018. The 1,400% price hike really was an eye opener. It wasn't just the money involved, which was large, but the fact that it came so suddenly and with so much magnitude. Google's choice to bump these prices made me realize that they could do the same thing with their compute cloud pricing or other APIs, again with little notice. That, in turn, led to the reali…

> Google's choice to bump these prices made me realize that they could do the same thing with their compute cloud pricing or other APIs, again with little notice. That, in turn, led to the realization that we needed to remove our reliance on Google's entire stack, and quickly, or we'd be in a terrible bargaining position later. Yes. You are right. The whole cloud deal is a try to rule out on premise infrastructure an…

I think there's a risk here but I'm not sure it goes as far as you suggest. There are still plenty of entities, particularly larger ones, that buy their own metal because at some scales it becomes far cheaper to run in a COLO (at least acc to near monthly articles posted on HN). I'd therefore put the risk that only big vendors will be able to buy hardware as low. That said, as ARM or custom chips gain market share within cloud providers, there's a risk that x86 or standard suppliers will struggle, but AMD/Intel see this too and surely one or both will adapt.

On skills I think there's a small risk of people not knowing how to manage/set up their own racks, but doing a passable job there isn't that hard. On general sys-admin stuff, cloud infrastructure seems to have parallels to hardware infrastructure, so it shouldn't be completely unfamiliar to set up a hardware router/network/linux server. There are definitely skills and details missing (remote admin tools for hardware maybe), but this doesn't seem like a big gap to bridge if $$$ is on the line?

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#206

Post by ra7 »

bobviolier wrote: post #7

These street maps are becoming insanely precise, probably helped by the competition. I see that Google Maps is now testing "detailed street maps" in some cities: https://www.justinobeirne.com/google-testing-detailed-street... Just a thought: maybe they are scanning cities for their self-driving cars and are also using this data for Maps?

> Just a thought: maybe they are scanning cities for their self-driving cars and are also using this data for Maps?

This is extremely likely. We know that Street View cars have been carrying Lidar equipment for a few years now which aids in HD mapping. It makes total sense for them to re-use this data for their self driving cars.

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#207

Post by barnacled »

burnthrow wrote: post #149
barnacled wrote: post #22

One thing I have noticed and found really irritating is the degradation of the street view functionality in Google maps. They have got lazy. I used to be able to click or keyboard navigate through a route but now it either stops responding to clicks, transports me onto a nearby motorway randomly,or gets massively unresponsive. I am very glad there is some competition coming, as good as Google maps is they are clearly…

Also, if you drop a pin while zoomed out at all, you are going to look at a user's PhotoSphere, no questions. I've tested this at length, no degree of precision in your pin drop will avoid the PhotoSphere, it owns the pin drop region at most zoom levels.

ah yes I have encountered this repeatedly myself!

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#208

Post by norswap »

Personally, what I find mind-boggling is the inability of Google to capitalize on Map's potential.

If improved, it could concurrence at least TripAdvisor and Yelp easily (and maybe Booking too, if they were willing to invest in customer service - which I doubt). Maps has the potential to be integrated (or better integrated) everywhere in Google's digital estate (search, GMail, Android, even YouTube).

Simarly, simplifying the creation, sharing, and most of all, discovery of user-made maps could boost it enormously.

Instead, it languishes. The UX is incredibly frustrating. Just sharing a location on a map can be non-trivial.

Making it more difficult to build on top of maps was an incredibly bone-headed move as well.

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#209

Post by jimbob45 »

alasdair_ wrote: post #173

I worked at a company that heavily used the maps API in 2018. The 1,400% price hike really was an eye opener. It wasn't just the money involved, which was large, but the fact that it came so suddenly and with so much magnitude. Google's choice to bump these prices made me realize that they could do the same thing with their compute cloud pricing or other APIs, again with little notice. That, in turn, led to the reali…

> This one choice by the maps team

Probably wasn’t the maps team that made the decision. Let’s not confuse the ace team that put out a leading-class product with their idiot management.

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

#210

Post by tinus_hn »

jeffbee wrote: post #174
dleslie wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GMail and whatever their chat is called this week (social), Daydream (VR/AR).

Gmail isn’t there because they want to search your email. It’s there because they want you to sign in.

Google indexes every invoice you get. If you use gmail they know exactly what you order at which store.
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