Google Decides to Monetize Maps • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Decides to Monetize Maps

#371

Post by meko » Sat, Apr 20, 2019, 4:04 PM UTC

orf wrote: post #277

mailslot wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open Streetmap doesn’t build laser scanning drones, or fleets of connected 360 camera vehicles, or the tech and infrastructure to do the mapping. SOMEONE has to build all of that. It can’t be free. If it’s govt funded, then there WILL be corruption, scams, and it’ll be run as well as the DMV.

Because the private sector is free of corruption and scams? The UK ordnance survey[1] is government run and is generally fantastic. They cover every inch of the UK in excruciating detail, provide centimeter precise GPS coordinates for everything and publish invaluable, cheap maps of it all. Why do you assume that the seemingly inept and corrupt US standard is the baseline that everything else will be? 1. https://en.m…

Many Americans have a baseless distrust of government. Our schools teach us from a very young age that "government bad, founding fathers came here from Britain to escape the evil government".

Re: Google Decides to Monetize Maps

#372

Post by neuralRiot » Tue, Apr 23, 2019, 7:38 PM UTC

frosted-flakes wrote: post #299

neuralRiot wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I just use a software in the desktop that will tell me if there's any available update, if so i can put it on an SD card and just pop it in the car and that's it, I believe i can do it directly o the unit through wifi but never tried.

Re: Google Decides to Monetize Maps

#373

Post by alasdair_ » Wed, Apr 24, 2019, 4:18 PM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #338

CharlesColeman wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish more people would do this, but sometimes it's a tough sell. I once tried to encourage a bunch of people who were banging their heads bloody trying to contribute to Facebook's places database to switch to editing OpenStreetMap instead. Most didn't want to switch -- they were convinced that their miserable experience improving Facebook was more impactful because it was a more popular product that they knew they…

OSM is used underlying a lot of commercial apps and services. Most people don't realise that though, so they think their edits correcting roads will only get seen by a handful of open source geeks.

Agreed. For example Pokemon GO uses it - which is why there was a large influx of new users, prompting the following guidelines page: https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2016/12/30/tips-pokemon-go/

Re: Google Decides to Monetize Maps

#374

Post by maracuja-juice » Wed, May 01, 2019, 7:28 PM UTC

elcomet wrote: post #119

maracuja-juice wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In China I experienced that it's exactly the other way around.

Isn't Google maps blocked in China?

It is perfectly accessible, just a not a very good map over there. Once we wanted to go to a bar but it turned out that they moved a few years ago to a completely different part of Shanghai.