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Google Decides to Monetize Maps

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Re: Google Decides to Monetize Maps

#291

Post by degenerate »

mrep wrote: post #285
Gene_Parmesan wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the app has become absolutely atrocious performance-wise. It used to load nearly immediately, but starting ~1.5 years ago I began noticing extreme slowdowns. Now it's barely functional for me. Every part of the UI is appallingly unresponsive -- taps that take 5 seconds to register, hitches in animation, etc. From tapping on the icon to being able to get underway (including typing in an address) used to be about f…

FYI, if you are using an android, you can try google maps go which is designed to run on devices with limited memory [0]. [0]: https://support.google.com/maps/answer/7566112?hl=en

Thanks, I remember seeing this before but assumed it was a junk copy-cat app.

The list of features it doesn't support is exactly the same list of things I don't care about. Nice! I just installed, and it seems to be a minimal app using a chrome wrapper. So it's basically a webpage... I will have to see how its navigation works.

Re: Google Decides to Monetize Maps

#292

Post by neetdeth »

kryogen1c wrote: post #281
rkagerer wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Couldnt agree more. In starting my quest to deGooglify my life, i switched to a new LG phone off my pixel 2 and i have to say, its worse. Am I going to switch back? Sure wont. Google has lost my business. On an article related note, i wonder if/when this will affect waze

deGooglifying by moving from a Google Google phone to an LG Google phone.

Of course, the only viable alternative at this point is Apple. That's the choice I made and I feel they've earned higher consumer trust... for the moment.

I really think that, with smartphone technological improvements flattening out and the oligopoly starting to squeeze their customer base, there's never been a better time for open smartphone projects to get a foothold.

Re: Google Decides to Monetize Maps

#293

Post by robocat »

Svip wrote: post #36
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.

OP is not saying they cannot monetise their product as they see fit (it's their product). No one is saying that. But when you have been offering something for free for years, people get used to that being the way of things, users are not going to respond well to the increase in advertisement. Had Google done this from the beginning, people would have been more accepting of it. Generally speaking, if you change a serv…

YouTube adverts: I have been very impressed with Google's slow frog-cooking growth of ads on YouTube.

I was also impressed with the decades long growth of advertising on TV.

Re: Google Decides to Monetize Maps

#294

Post by eaandkw »

mattkevan wrote: post #282
Applejinx wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wonder how close they can get to deliberately routing all traffic through McDonalds and Starbucks drive-throughs, as an unskippable part of the route. Oh wait, oh wait! They do that and then you get an INSTANT E-COUPON for wherever they drove you through. You'll be driving to nowhere just for the chance to be given amazing discounts en-route! (open to placing bets on how they will inevitably, literally do this. I wan…

Just wait until Waymo’s self driving cars become a thing. Your route home will be determined by the highest bidders, so you’ll have no choice but to go past that particular McDonald’s, the in-cabin screens displaying personalised, location-based messages all the while.

Better yet. You will be restricted where you can go based on your net worth or social credit score.

Re: Google Decides to Monetize Maps

#295

Post by Zenst »

blueski wrote: post #222

Our Google Maps bill went from ~$100k per year to $380k per year as a result of these changes. Needless to say, we're moving over to Mapbox. What Google seems to miss is how this will affect customers' receptiveness to other Google products in the long-term. Having pulled the rug from under us once, there's no way we could consider e.g. a migration to Cloud in case the same happened again (where moving to a different…

Google seems to launch a product, see if it dominates and then monitorises it or drop it like a stone. But offering a free product, advert free, building up customer base for years and then flipping the switch - has become the norm. What they seem to be gearing towards more and more, is offering customers subscription deals to opt out of adverts etc.

Pretty genius really from a company/marketing perspective and equally an approach that only a company the scale of Google with the pockets, could pull off. They effectively rope in lots of developers, then flip the switch on them, knowing some will jump, but equally most will hang in there for various reasons. They are now looking at tapping into the other end of the pie with customer subscriptions.

The upshot and what you end up paying for is the ability to get real support - least that is the vertues many a Google 1, user are trumpeting.

But the real upshot is moves like this will only fuel development of alternative offerings and more so, boost existing alternative offerings.

As with most things beyond death and taxes, there is some sort of choice. It is surprising how many companies in various forms count on consumers not exercising those choices.

Re: Google Decides to Monetize Maps

#296

Post by dasil003 »

manigandham wrote: post #123
dasil003 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Authoritarianism is not a solution, but neither is the magic of the free market when the dynamic is increasingly consolidated wealth looking for ever faster returns due to the technology cycle. The idea that a non-profit could compete in the current economic and cultural climate is laughable. Some social change is required, and government for all its flaws is the logical place for such change to actually gain some te…

The idea that a non-profit must compete is what's laughable. This service is expensive. Who's going to pay for it? Taxes? Subscriptions? Ads again? The free market is exactly what allows anyone to compete, and Apple and Microsoft already do so, along with dozens of industrial providers.

Non-profits can't afford the engineers to make a maps service work well at scale. Sure, Google is entering the revenue extraction phase of their existence, so it opens the door to competitors, but who will fill that gap? The non-profit version will be shitty compared to the next VC-funded startup paying engineers $200-$500k each to build a world-changing maps service, which they give away for free in order to grab marketshare, then they crank up the price and the cycle repeats. The low barrier to entry when the web disrupted Microsoft was an anomaly, even despite increased open source tooling, VC boom times have sucked the oxygen out of the room for non-profits and bootstrappers trying to build great tech products.

Re: Google Decides to Monetize Maps

#297

Post by lalos »

bduerst wrote: post #270
CameronBanga wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If two people have their phones in the same room every night, I think Google can make presumptions on the situation.

That they live in the same high rise? That they're roommates? Again, this is further to GP's point about exaggeration.

They can easily obtain the SSID of the network they are at and that's it. Or scrape the Uber receipt from relevant gmail accounts the morning after with the appropriate time stamps. It's trivial with a reasonable degree of confidence to deduce it.

Re: Google Decides to Monetize Maps

#298

Post by JohnFen »

mythz wrote: post #289
JohnFen wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...why none of the existing competition... You're agreeing with me here by admitting that there was existing competition. The rest of your remarks are about how much better Google's offering was to the competition, which is a point I've already agreed with.

That's like saying a DB search is existing competition for a Google Search, it isn't. There were existing GEO companies that provided Mapping Services (I was developing GEO Apps with one of them at the time), but there was nothing like the consumer focused Google's Maps preceding it, with its worldwide pre-rendered imagery at multiple zoom-levels coupled with a global search that displayed annotated Markup results de…

> That's like saying a DB search is existing competition for a Google Search

If by "DB search" you mean the old-school engines like Lycos, etc., then yes, it is like saying that. And yes, I think those did count as existing competition for Google search.

I suspect that we mean different things by "competition" here...

Re: Google Decides to Monetize Maps

#299

Post by frosted-flakes »

neuralRiot wrote: post #261
frosted-flakes wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have used google Maps for navigation. It's not all that much better than my Garmin, at least not in my area. Even in downtown Manhattan the Garmin worked flawlessly. And Garmin units have had natural directions like that for four or five years. But I find it more of a hindrance than anything. I would rather hear "Turn right onto Wellington St" than "Turn right at the Starbucks", especially because the Starbucks is…

I too have a garmin based navigation radio and I won't be ver trade it over Gmaps, as you said it's always there just touch the icon and it's up and running, i can speak directions just like in the phone it will lower the music or phone volume to tell directions, i can sync search adresses from my phone or can search on it if i want to, it's faster.

Is yours built into the dash? How much of a pain is it to update the maps? Mine stays in the suction cup mount on the windshield, but when I update it once a year or so, I can easily bring it into the house and plug it into my computer. It's not linked to my radio at all, so I don't get niceties like lowering the volume, but I don't mind.
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