Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Farewell, Google Maps

inderapotheke.de

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 545 posts

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#251

Post by komali2 »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #211
komali2 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a couple analyses: https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/12/17565218/arenanet-guild-w... https://www.polygon.com/2018/7/10/17550276/guild-wars-2-aren... https://www.pcgamer.com/fired-arenanet-dev-calls-dismissal-a... In short, a woman working at ArenaNet, the company running GuildWars2 (an MMORPG), posted a twitter thread about her thoughts on designing narratives in an MMO. A prominent (male) streamer of the game r…

This is a really unique point of view. I think conversations would be improved with this mentality. It might be a bit hard to swallow, though. Who's to say that a streamer is less qualified to analyze character writing in MMOs? After all, the writer is usually not the one impacted by the game. Streamers are. I know nothing about this situation, though. I'm just saying that it would personally feel difficult to adopt…

Well, yea, the guy is definitely qualified to have an opinion, and probably the developers should take note. In this case it just set of an unfortunate misogyny finger pointing nightmare that led to the ridiculous firing of two employees.

To your second point, that's another thing I think a lot about. Honesty, in its many forms. I value honesty tremendously, because how can two individuals (or a community) operate in good faith if people are being dishonest with each other? However... we are irrational. When I was a recruiter, going to a company with my candidate's actual rate, and then turning around and giving my candidate the actual offer, would lead to bad tastes on both sides. Instead, I'd lie to the company, tellm my candidate was asking for more, then then around and tell the candidate that the offer was less than what they were looking for. Then I'd let both parties stew for a bit, give the candidate a call back, and lo and behold I got them an extra five bucks an hour like magic (citing the actual offer). Then, both parties would feel they had really gotten the most possible value out of the transaction and be happier for it.

So then what do you do in interpersonal communication? Are you upfront and honest about your feelings regarding your qualifications? Do you state your opinions forthright, while still being polite? Or do you "play the game?"

I guess it boils down to your values. If you want to consistently be liked more, listened to more, and "get your way" more, you heed the wisdom of the ancients and do the Dale Carnegie. Even if it hurts.

In my experience though, it stops hurting very quickly. Turns out a lot of the times I was confidence in how right I was, I was way off base... And I usually end up learning something by seeing things from the opponent's perspective.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#252

Post by auslander »

> we would be wary on taking free Google Analytics for granted

It is not free. Your users pay for that with their privacy and Google gets your user's browsing history for free. It is unfair and you should not have used it in the first place.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#253

Post by ripdog »

atr2 wrote: post #59

That email is fake: they have forged the screenshot. In the first paragraph you can clearly see how the typeface changes to something different (starting with "enterprise-grade") Compare these two "g": https://i.imgur.com/8Ja6pl2.png I've archived the post in case they decide to fix their "mistake". https://archive.is/w2swh

Couldn't that be subpixel anti-aliasing?

Besides that, there's nothing difficult to believe about that experience with google.

And besides THAT, there's a far more trivial method of 'forging' an email - using the devtools to modify the DOM. No need to bust out photoshop at all.

Your accusation makes no sense and is based on almost nothing.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#254

Post by apatters »

ericd wrote: post #7

"Sudden change of policy by Google, which is directed specifically at startups (as smaller web sites should largely remain below even the new lower thresholds), is surely an unpleasant surprise for us and does not create much trust in Google as a vendor. In the future we would therefore keep our distance from Google Cloud and avoid deep integration with any Google services on which it can pull a similar trick. For ex…

The pricing change is understandably very frustrating for users of Google Maps who are affected, but it seems like a big win to me for everyone in the mapping market. Google is trading away a monopoly position (and related regulatory risk) in exchange for increased revenue so it's a win for them. It's a win for other mappers because now they can compete on price. It's a win for users because they are getting more choice.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#255

Post by partiallypro »

beerlord wrote: post #56

I think the GDPR and EU fine is going to trigger Google - and perhaps other large American tech companies - to actually start charging for services, now that our personal data cannot be so easily sold. Google has been enjoying huge profits, so is probably setting the pricing on those services at the level required to maintain those profits. I think what we will see in the maps arena is multiple-country specific maps…

It will likely effect Google more than anyone else. Microsoft and Amazon generally don't make (much) money from data collection. So as far as cloud providers, those two should be safe.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#256

Post by partiallypro »

seshagiric wrote: post #27

It's strange they haven't tried Bing Maps (differnt than Azure maps), it has a much rich web control and support for Javascript which per the article was one of the selection criteria.

I've tried using Bing Maps for clients and they always complain and want Google. Maybe with the pricing increases that will begin to change. Google Maps lacks any real competition. Sure there's Here, and Apple Maps, and Bing...but none of them are -serious- competitors.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#257

Post by parrellel »

asfasgasg wrote: post #250
parrellel wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean Google+ needed promotion so the Reader product was killed.

Google+ only existed in the first place because of the thing that was killing the medium and its one hundred and forty character-limited cousin.

As I look at the big list of RSS feeds I found this very thread in, I can't help but imagine that news of it's death is a tad exaggerated.

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#258

Post by auslander »

komali2 wrote: post #178
Retra wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lawyer wouldn't have to hedge and say "IANAL." Why would we expect Torvalds to hedge? He's the expert in change of his project. Etc..

A lawyer can be wrong, and so can Torvalds, but yea, they may be more likely to be wrong. Nobody has to, but in my experience, you do seem to get a much more positive reaction when you do. At least in Western culture, it seems a well played "humble" character is admirable, especially when it is known that the particular person has absolutely no reason to be humble. EDIT: I don't expect anybody to hedge "just because"…

In small talk, yes, be polite and humble everywhere.

In science and engineering, I prefer it has some meaning. If you're sure in what you're saying, have data to back it up, dealt with it before - say straight. If it's a guess, say it is a guess.

So I would not spend time guessing was it politeness of lack of facts behind that hedging. Btw, I upvoted GP :)

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#259

Post by ballenf »

ajross wrote: post #111
tobltobs wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thought the same, there are not many use cases which will be still profitable after this price increase.

Counterpoint: if these startups need a giant subsidized mapping product for free or else they aren't profitable, they weren't ever profitable . I mean, there's a real cry-me-a-river aspect here. No one has a Google-granted fundamental right to mapping. It's a free product Google released to drive traffic to their own offerings, and which they happen to make available for free for a lot of purposes. As it turns out, y…

One could say the same about Google's cry-me-a-river response to the EU's decision on Android:

"If Google needs to engage in anticompetitive behavior to keep Android profitable/viable, then they weren't ever profitable."

Re: Farewell, Google Maps

#260

Post by pier25 »

Everyone here is assuming Google is increasing the price to win money.

Considering Google Maps is key in Google's business I wouldn't be surprised if this was actually intended to weed out small companies and only keep the big whales around.

I don't know the numbers but I imagine Google Maps app/web users are by far the largest traffic source. Traffic from projects using the API must be peanuts in comparison.

Post reply on HN