Google Maps' Moat • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#471

Post by BubuIIC » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 2:24 PM UTC

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…

Except from searching for addresses I find that OpenStreetMap offers a vastly better data source, nicer rendering and far superior routing capabilities.

This come from an admittedly from the PoV of not using a smartphone with google service, so it's either fully offline maps or online vector maps in the open source, well supported OsmAnd app or using the sluggish google maps website. Also I'm in Germany which has by far the best OSM map quality I have seen so far. And I almost exclusively cycle everywhere and every time I tried using google maps It sent me through some 2km cobblestone road 5 min after starting.

But I still find the Mapnik default rendering style very pleasant to look at.

As an additional benefit I can just fix OSM error on the fly, on my Phone, whether I'm online or offline and queue the update for later. There is really no competition here...

Edit: I forgot one of my main criticism of google maps. I mainly stopped using it in the webbrowser because it was getting sooooo slow. openstreetmap.org loads almost instantly.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#472

Post by ineedasername » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 2:24 PM UTC

taurath wrote: post #317

ineedasername wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it just as wasteful to have twice as many designers & programmers & market researchers & behavioral researchers working on two competing UX systems?

If they’re going to design program and research to make the same thing while competing then sure it is. Coke and Pepsi have been around for a long time, despite sharing the same set of ingredients that any other soda maker can use. Their value comes from marketing and distribution systems.

Well, precisely. And what value is added by massive resources devoted to convincing people to to drink one of two nearly identical products? How much effort might be saved if two nearly identical bottling & distribution systems could instead collaborate and reduce the waste incurred?

By stating "collaborate on X so that we can focus or compete on Y" merely adds one more turtle to to the the stack. You need to take a step back and ask these sorts of questions:

Does competition solve any problems that cooperation does not, or solve them better?

Do problems arise in competition that would not under cooperation?

Is there a 3rd alternative?

What about competition that pursues what's best for everyone, even if it is worse for the individual company pursuing it? (arguably not possible when corporate officers have a fiduciary responsibility to act in the best interest of the company, which presents a conflict)

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#473

Post by falcolas » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 2:33 PM UTC

biztos wrote: post #365

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…

I was just on a road trip through Spain, France, Italy and Slovenia. Google Maps was good enough for road navigation but not perfect, and some things I really would have expected to work did not: location of service stations on the highway comes to mind. When searching for places in European cities large and small, Google is missing a ton of information and much of what it has is wrong. Opening times, for instance, o…

> data that can be acquired programmatically is very good on Google, and anything requiring human input or verification is relatively weak

I think you've described Google as a whole with this one sentence. YouTube content classification. Web site content identification. Account abuse. Their porn filters. There are as many examples as there are Google data products.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#474

Post by Brakenshire » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 2:39 PM UTC

pronik wrote: post #422

aluhut wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No love for OpenStreetMaps here? In Germany it is often superior to everything out there. Especially due to the mappers/updaters motivation and nice gamification tools like StreetComplete or more professional tools like Vespucci. https://github.com/westnordost/StreetComplete http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Vespucci

You are right when it comes to streets and bicycle lanes and such. When talking about usability, display quality and search, not so much. I realize the value lies in the data, but for the casual map user there is a long way for OSM to go. Besides, I don't see any reason why Google can't add OpenStreetMap as an additional data source in some or all areas (right in the spirit of the article). It will be interesting to…

OSM has a GPL-like data license. You cannot combine it with another data source without releasing the combined data source.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#475

Post by ensignavenger » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 2:41 PM UTC

whazor wrote: post #298

aluhut wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No love for OpenStreetMaps here? In Germany it is often superior to everything out there. Especially due to the mappers/updaters motivation and nice gamification tools like StreetComplete or more professional tools like Vespucci. https://github.com/westnordost/StreetComplete http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Vespucci

Same in Netherlands. Google Maps has recently become worse and worse. Small pedestrian roads are missing, and the navigation is getting stupid. Google applies the one-way limitations for cars also on cycling routes.

Is it legal there to ride your bike the wrong way on a one way street?

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#476

Post by mcrady » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 2:43 PM UTC

joshuamorton wrote: post #149

mcrady wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I launched Google Maps for mobile in 2005. In 2006, Eric Schmidt was worried that Yahoo Go was a killer app. My claim that Google Maps was the real killer app fell on deaf ears. :)

This is a total non sequitor, but huh, your last comment on this account was in 2012. Do you use others, or just only speak when you feel you have something incredibly cool (which this tidbit certainly is!) to add?

:) Yeah, I'm a super lurker.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#477

Post by jon-wood » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 2:43 PM UTC

freeflight wrote: post #385

reacweb wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Richly ? Like in terminator or like in Asimov's foundation ?

It would probably be way more absurd like an infomercial version of The Matrix; Whole generations of humans born for the sole purpose of watching ads, all organized and kept in check by a "benevolent" AI which constantly creates new ads, for no particular purpose.

I'd watch this. Extra points if it also develops revolutionary new products, solely so that it can show ads for those products with amazing conversion rates.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#478

Post by jon-wood » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 2:48 PM UTC

biztos wrote: post #365

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…

I was just on a road trip through Spain, France, Italy and Slovenia. Google Maps was good enough for road navigation but not perfect, and some things I really would have expected to work did not: location of service stations on the highway comes to mind. When searching for places in European cities large and small, Google is missing a ton of information and much of what it has is wrong. Opening times, for instance, o…

> My sense is that the map data that can be acquired programmatically is very good on Google, and anything requiring human input or verification is relatively weak, especially outside the USA.

Their Local Guides program in Maps is clearly a direct reaction to this, they even explicitly ask you to sign up with a message saying "we need help from a human". Once you're signed up you'll occasionally be asked a series of yes or no style questions about places you've visited, ranging from "Does this place have disabled access" to "Would you consider this a classy place". They also encourage you to do things like adding the opening hours of places they don't know about, or confirming that places are still in business.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#479

Post by dom96 » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 2:50 PM UTC

chmaynard wrote: post #431

Earlier this year, Google Maps was directing people traveling to my newly-constructed home to a different location several miles away. I reported the problem to Google via their app, which prompted me to indicate the correct location on a map. The new location was in their database within a day or two, and I received a thank-you email from Google. Amazing.

I couldn't disagree more. Perhaps you can help me out but I see no way to correct invalid addresses on Google Maps. How did you do it?

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#480

Post by Arnt » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 2:54 PM UTC

kuschku wrote: post #440

hota_mazi wrote: post #232

The article keeps mentioning satellites but Google's imagery data is mostly provided by planes, not satellites. They have their own fleet of planes, which they have hollowed out and redesigned (with the supervision and authorization of the FAA) and fitted with their cameras. Also, it's not as simple as "Google has a six year lead on Apple in imagery": it's more that Apple can't keep up. As the article correctly state…

If Apple can’t keep up with Google, how is anyone ever expected to launch a competitor to Google without VC money?

Same as usual: Picking a niche and trusting that Google prefers to spend its attention on improving adwords rather than on inventing a niche product.

Google is scary, because it's unusually competent for a big company. But apart from that it's the same as usual: The bigcos can devote a big team to build whatever it is you're building and then leverage their existing customer relationships to sell it to many of their existing customers. But they usually don't. They work on their big core products instead.