51–60 of 139 posts
Google has us all by the balls. As a small business owner, in my particular market, I can't survive without their services, even though they suck and I hate them, and their entire company. My business can be destroyed by Google on a whim at a moment's notice. How did it get to be so bad?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A fair number of HN takes are snark and critique I think these days, it's a bit more reddit now? I think folks underestimate just HOW MUCH data google maps has and how many users it has, and the integration / scale is impressive particularly as some parts of the system are real time. They seem to update both street view and satellite data pretty frequently, and you can go back in time in sat vie as well, so we have a…
> When I do routing I can route by walking, transit, driving etc. It seems to know every train / bus route and stop and even schedule. Not only that but they seem to route through the "most popular" or "most attended routes" crowdsourced by their unaware users. Meanwhile others just calculate the "best time" or "shortest path" routing.
So, for the sections of the route I know I often ignore its directions and go my preferred way and just let it catch up. Assuming that many other people around here are making the same choices as me (perhaps a big assumption in some cases, definitely not all), it still has kept recommending the less-preferred routes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When Apple Maps got released and everbody made fun of how bad it was, it was revealed that Google Maps had something like 6000 people working on it for years and years, funded through Alphabet corporation's search monopoly and ad revenue. Not the maps ad revenue, that's a pittance. The search revenue. And note that a company that was the world's biggest (or nearly so) at the time failed to catch up, and has still fai…
Google doesn't have a search monopoly.
1. https://sparktoro.com/blog/as-the-antitrust-case-against-goo...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A fair number of HN takes are snark and critique I think these days, it's a bit more reddit now? I think folks underestimate just HOW MUCH data google maps has and how many users it has, and the integration / scale is impressive particularly as some parts of the system are real time. They seem to update both street view and satellite data pretty frequently, and you can go back in time in sat vie as well, so we have a…
> When I do routing I can route by walking, transit, driving etc. It seems to know every train / bus route and stop and even schedule. Not only that but they seem to route through the "most popular" or "most attended routes" crowdsourced by their unaware users. Meanwhile others just calculate the "best time" or "shortest path" routing.
I tend to use these "Schleichwege" (short cuts only locals know) as a local - but find me using them more and more when I use Google Maps in areas that i am just not familiar with.
In bigger cities I (anecdotally) see Google routing lots of traffic through these areas that were before mostly quite with only a few locals using them as short cuts. Now many more people are being routed through to combat the typical road congestion and for google to be able to mostly avoid traffic jams for the users.
When considering, that residential streets are not build to encounter this much traffic, they tend to degrade quicker - making the situation even worse for people living there.
I do not have a solution - or even made my mind up what to finally think about this. But this is one "data" point more for me to consider when thinking about costs and benefits to society from such a solution like Google Maps.
Google Maps may silently be Alphabet's most powerful property. As someone who has spent the last 8 months religiously degoogling my life, I've found that Google Maps features are incredibly hard to replace, while at the same time, giving Google direct abilities to influence behavior in the physical world. People see it as "just a map", but it's so much more. OSM-based map tools are pretty good as maps, but they utter…
1) Search, Goolge maps is simply best in class here. Looking for whatever, Google maps finds the location or address
2) Route planning, either I am too stupid but most other solutions make it hard to chnage the starting point or add waypoints
Have to agree, Google Maps for everyday navigation is just the best. Even if routing used to be better, IMHO.
Google Maps may silently be Alphabet's most powerful property. As someone who has spent the last 8 months religiously degoogling my life, I've found that Google Maps features are incredibly hard to replace, while at the same time, giving Google direct abilities to influence behavior in the physical world. People see it as "just a map", but it's so much more. OSM-based map tools are pretty good as maps, but they utter…
I’ve tried to switch to Apple maps a few times. Most recently was last weekend I used it for navigation directions. The problem this time was on Google maps your route in the display is annotated with small white arrows at the point where you turn off your current road on to a turning or slip road. On Apple maps you don’t get that, you just see a continuous blue curve with no visual indication where the turns are. Ba…
I live in east London, and the other day I searched for directions to "Barbican", which is both a tube station and landmark in central London. My transport preference in the app is set to public transport.
Apple Maps gave me driving directions to an island called "Barbican" in the middle of the sea somewhere.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not true. The local newspaper didn't have control over the paper maps people had and tourists bought, They didn't control the phonebook, they didn't handle your mail, they didn't track every store you entered and article you opened. I think you gravely overestimate the power that local newspapers had.
They did all the local reviews and reporting on businesses. YMMV but growing up in the 70s and 80s and working in the 90s in several startups in Germany, the local newspaper and their clique in smaller towns (50-100k people) controlled business perceptions and could make you fly or crash. I'm happy for Google reviews today, because Google has an agenda, but not about ratings on your businesses - not like the local ne…
Nonetheless one could work around the local paper if you were able to get WOM started. At least in special sub cultures/groups. But if you catered for the average Jane (or Joe) you needed the goodwill of the paper. And you had to buy it with advertising (and sometimes outright bribes to the journalist).
And - if there were one or two influential clubs/societies in town like the local sports club or the "Freiwillige Feuerwehr" (local voluntary fire department) you better had their higher ups on your good side and pampered them.
Google Maps may silently be Alphabet's most powerful property. As someone who has spent the last 8 months religiously degoogling my life, I've found that Google Maps features are incredibly hard to replace, while at the same time, giving Google direct abilities to influence behavior in the physical world. People see it as "just a map", but it's so much more. OSM-based map tools are pretty good as maps, but they utter…
I got rid of Google maps as well, the things I am missing are: 1) Search, Goolge maps is simply best in class here. Looking for whatever, Google maps finds the location or address 2) Route planning, either I am too stupid but most other solutions make it hard to chnage the starting point or add waypoints Have to agree, Google Maps for everyday navigation is just the best. Even if routing used to be better, IMHO.
OpenRouteService work great for that, but there is no traffic prevision/live information. https://maps.openrouteservice.org/#/
Google Maps may silently be Alphabet's most powerful property. As someone who has spent the last 8 months religiously degoogling my life, I've found that Google Maps features are incredibly hard to replace, while at the same time, giving Google direct abilities to influence behavior in the physical world. People see it as "just a map", but it's so much more. OSM-based map tools are pretty good as maps, but they utter…
Except it's easy for a competitor to scrape Maps and build their own using OSM.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve tried to switch to Apple maps a few times. Most recently was last weekend I used it for navigation directions. The problem this time was on Google maps your route in the display is annotated with small white arrows at the point where you turn off your current road on to a turning or slip road. On Apple maps you don’t get that, you just see a continuous blue curve with no visual indication where the turns are. Ba…
The problem with Apple Maps is that it's just monumentally stupid, for lack of a better term. I live in east London, and the other day I searched for directions to "Barbican", which is both a tube station and landmark in central London. My transport preference in the app is set to public transport. Apple Maps gave me driving directions to an island called "Barbican" in the middle of the sea somewhere.