Google Maps' Moat is Evaporating (substack.com) 64
An anonymous reader shares an analysis: See, Google Maps is not just an app on your phone. It's also a suite of developer tools that power countless other applications that are used by millions of people every day. And that part of the business is known as the Google Maps Platform (but most of the time I hear it referred to as the Google Maps API). In 2018, Google inexplicably decided to self-sabotage their enterprise maps business by raising their prices ~1,400% overnight. The only time in my life that I've ever felt envious of commission-based sales people was in the wake of that announcement — I would have really liked to work at Mapbox as an order-taker that following quarter. Still, today, you need an MBA with a specialization in Mind Games to understand the Google Maps Platform pricing scheme, and it helps to have a joint law degree to navigate their terms of service. In fact, the ToS are so Draconian, they're the subject of investigations by the House Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law. My favorite tidbit from their recent report, Competition in Digital Markets quotes an anonymous Google Maps Platform customer:
Several developers stated that Google Maps introduced greater licensing restrictions as it gained a stronger market position. One noted that Google's control over what now serves as a key mapping technology has allowed Google to call all the shots. "We license Google Maps and it's essentially a contract of adhesion. It's full of restrictions and we aren't able to negotiate any changes," the developer said.
These are the actions of an organization that is annoyed they ever let people become their customers. And for what? A few hundred million in fees, maybe? That's likely nothing compared to the billions in advertising revenue from consumers searching for the best hamburger in town. So why not jack up the prices, lock down the data, and let 'em churn, baby, churn? The trouble is, Google isn't the only game in town anymore. If they keep alienating their customers and pursuing a proprietary data strategy at all costs, they're going to continue to lose ground to competition while spending more than ever just to tread water.
Several developers stated that Google Maps introduced greater licensing restrictions as it gained a stronger market position. One noted that Google's control over what now serves as a key mapping technology has allowed Google to call all the shots. "We license Google Maps and it's essentially a contract of adhesion. It's full of restrictions and we aren't able to negotiate any changes," the developer said.
These are the actions of an organization that is annoyed they ever let people become their customers. And for what? A few hundred million in fees, maybe? That's likely nothing compared to the billions in advertising revenue from consumers searching for the best hamburger in town. So why not jack up the prices, lock down the data, and let 'em churn, baby, churn? The trouble is, Google isn't the only game in town anymore. If they keep alienating their customers and pursuing a proprietary data strategy at all costs, they're going to continue to lose ground to competition while spending more than ever just to tread water.
Open Street Maps for privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Open Street Maps for privacy (Score:4, Interesting)
So, yeah, OSM may have better privacy protection, but it also needs to actually work as well as the commercial competitors before it's a real alternative. Today, that's not yet the case.
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the most interesting part of your statement was the battery life.
sooner or later maps catch up to each other, it's basically a finite
sieve search. Yet battery life is super critical over a very long term.
the more you save while giving similar results, the better chances
of reuse and presenting another advertiser shown
Re:Open Street Maps for privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
OSM is open source. If you feel the data in your area is inaccurate, supply it yourself.
Re:Open Street Maps for privacy (Score:5, Informative)
MS and others contribute (Score:2)
Microsoft and numerous others are contributing the OSM, on the theory that better no one have the data than Google does. I applaud that initiative of theirs. (also, the backwards compatibility of the newest XBox)
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I have the same situation as you (PO Box in next village) but my street address is found easily on OSM.
You know, you can add information to OSM such as your street address.
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Nice opening comment, but OSM is kind of hopeless for the other reason. Absence of a financial model is not evidence that money doesn't exist. (Based on "Absence of evidence is not proof of absence" (and various related forms).) But I certainly agree with the privacy nightmare concerns of Google Maps.
So when do you think privacy will become a profit-related concern to corporate cancers like the google (and Facebook)? Maybe on the 12th of never? Anyway, sometime after they can't find cheap politicians to bri
Re:Open Street Maps for privacy (Score:5, Interesting)
I was involved in a project that used Google Maps a few years ago. At least back then OSM wasn't anywhere near good enough to be an alternative. Much less detail, lacking satellite imagery, no Street View, but most of all the API was pretty basic. Google Maps has a lot of tools for annotating the map and route planning. Of course search features are top notch as well.
It would be great if OSM got some development to bring new features and some extra data from somewhere. It won't be easy though, even other large corporations can't seem to manage it.
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lacking satellite imagery, no Street View
Gee, what were people doing for all those centuries when we didn't have these things?
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Sat images and Street View help the teams sent out to fix leaks locate them. Takes them longer to find it without, costs the company more money.
Re:Open Street Maps for privacy (Score:5, Interesting)
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If I could block google.com and the rest of their evil empire, I would.
You more or less already can block Google. I have all third-party content blocked by default in my desktop browsers, and I only need to enable google.com on the handful of sites that use reCAPTCHA when logging in, after which I immediately block it again.
As for the rest of their sites and services, while they do make decent, free options, you can nearly always find decent alternatives, though you’ll sometimes need to pay for them. DuckDuckGo has been my preferred search engine for a few years now (its
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in so many things. Stop using Google. They are EVIL. If I could block google.com and the rest of their evil empire, I would.
I canceled my account on Google a couple months ago, and did the same with my Twitter account. I canceled my FB several years ago.
On my Samsung GS10, I disabled Google Play and removed all Google apps. I used FDroid to find suitable replacements. Using my GS10, which replaced my ailing iPhone 6+, is like wearing handcuffs. My Redmi Note 7 was unlocked and much more intuitive in use and superior in performance. I will never buy another Samsung phone, or a locked phone, again. Even though I have ca
Question (Score:5, Interesting)
"Google isn't the only game in town anymore"
I use their Street View a lot on my desktop PC, for various purposes: looking for nice, cheap property in city outskirts and rural areas, evaluating places for tourism (anything worth visiting nearby while on foot), etc. So far, I have not found a better solution, or even one which comes close.
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But I think this is specifically referring to embedded maps on web pages, which Google used to completely own. Street view probably isn't something the site developer considers, most of the time. And, if the visitor wants it for some reason, I imagine they would just open the Google Maps app on their phone and type in the address.
Since Google made their licensing changes, I've seen quite a few sites switch over to using the Leaflet Javascript library on top of other map providers - most often HERE (Nokia) o
Re: Question (Score:2)
Appleâ(TM)s implementation is substantially better than Googleâ(TM)s, but is (at least currently) only available in much smaller areas.
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Not only that, but if you use satellite imagery Google gives you one zoom level higher than every other publicly available satellite imagery source. That might not seem like a big deal but if you're in the back country, being able to see where roads and trails are is pretty important.
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"Google isn't the only game in town anymore" I use their Street View a lot on my desktop PC, for various purposes: looking for nice, cheap property in city outskirts and rural areas, evaluating places for tourism (anything worth visiting nearby while on foot), etc. So far, I have not found a better solution, or even one which comes close.
I just checked Bing Streetside, which is the first time I ever used it. Bing maps has my entire street, taken in 2015, but it's there. Google street view has never gone down my cul-de-sac, despite being an ungated 30 year old neighborhood in a major metro area.
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Bing Streetside doesn't work on my PC for any location, even when logged in to a Microsoft account.
There's an article saying "if the streets color in blue, Streetside data exists for that location" - they never color in blue, even when looking at places such as New York or the Microsoft headquarters.
Google Street View just works.
I was never a fan of this or that company. I use their products as tools, means to an end. And if one tool works well out of the box with no hassle, and the other makes me go throug
Maybe Apple isn't so stupid after all (Score:2, Interesting)
Apple has had and continues to have problems with its Apple Maps service, but it was clear at the time to anyone who looked at what Google was doing why Apple chose to develop its own. The criticism of the quality of the service expressed here and on other tech sites at the time of 1st release was valid, but the ridicule of Apple for daring to reject Google Maps has proven to be... ridiculous.
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but the ridicule of Apple for daring to reject Google Maps has proven to be... ridiculous.
I think the ridicule was for the poor quality they pushed on people. Tim Cook suggested people use Google maps instead of Apple maps. It was kind of hilarious.
Re:Maybe Apple isn't so stupid after all (Score:5, Interesting)
Suggest you go back and read the tech web sites from the time period when Apple Maps was released. As noted there was plenty of legitimate criticism of the database and app, but there was also a lot of dismissive and ridiculing discussion questioning why Apple would ever do such a stupid thing as launching their own mapping service rather than agreeing to Google's terms for a contract re-up. Possibly Apple knew more about where Google was going with those T&Cs than the commenters at the time did.
Re: Maybe Apple isn't so stupid after all (Score:2)
Yes, is purely saying "why didn't apple choose to work with Google when their product is very obviously not ready for production?". There was also the case of apple fans bragging about how superior iOS was to Android, and this was clear evidence that it wasn't.
You're acting like the criticism was about the idea, it wasn't, it was about the implementation.
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LOL
2018?! I know Slashdot is a little slow ... (Score:2)
Still, seriously - if there were any real signs of downturn ever since then the author should've point them out but obviously there aren't, just some vague "Google Will Regress to the Mean if Nothing Changes" or "OpenStreetMap (OSM), over the next decade, has the potential...".
There's nothing to suggest some trouble for GMaps, sure they have some decent competition, they've had competitors even BEFORE launch but kind of kicked them out by being free (at least superficially) - which won't bother much OSM whi
Re:2018?! I know Slashdot is a little slow ... (Score:4, Interesting)
About a year ago I got a job search e-mail from what turned out to be... MapQuest. It even started out "I bet you didn't think MapQuest still existed...". But apparently they do, having becoming a supplier of mapping system infrastructure rather than a retail system.
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I just checked out Mapquest's website. They're ad infested, and I haven't seen a pop-under ad for a while, but Mapquest gave me one.
Re:2018?! I know Slashdot is a little slow ... (Score:5, Insightful)
ridicurous (Score:2)
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Maps are expensive (Score:3)
Google is practically the only game in town because accurate and up-to-date maps are very expensive. This is why Google crushed TomTom, Mapsco, RM, etc. They could dump banks worth of cash into their mapping program. Maps are so hard and expensive that even Apple and Microsoft have struggled to keep up.
OpenStreetMaps is the closest runner up and is pretty good for being mostly community driven, but even it still falls short significantly.
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Google is practically the only game in town because accurate and up-to-date maps are very expensive. This is why Google crushed TomTom, Mapsco, RM, etc
I thought Google "crushed" TomTom because people got the maps for free on their phone, instead of paying $200 for a separate GPS device.
Also, citation needed that Google maps are accurate. I took a wrong turn last week because a street existed in real life that wasn't on Google maps. They could be more accurate than other mapping services, but not necessarily.
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The included on phone rather than paying $200 for a GPS was the first nail in tomtom's coffin, but the second was the free, real-time data updates instead of having to plug that GPS into a computer and pay $50/year for new data...
Rent Seeking (Score:4, Insightful)
When you need a team of accountants and lawyers to understand a licensing agreement, you're dealing with a company that lives off rent seeking rather than innovation. Google used to be the latter, but has veered sharply towards the former. I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but we'd probably all be a lot better off if the company was broken apart or regulated now that they're big enough to crowd out new comers and stifle continued innovation.
Usually when companies do stuff like this (Score:2)
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The ones making enough money to be worth keeping will get their own contract terms.
FTFY.
Contracts of adhesion are nothing more than boilerplate 'take it or leave it' terms offered to smaller players. There is nothing to say that larger customers won't be offered their own terms. Often terms that the small fry might not be aware of.
rather than risk their entire business model on another API platform that may or may not work out
This is a good point. And it's one that Google (and Microsoft and other platform vendors) understand. Developers' loyalty to one or another interface is amazingly sticky. Justified or not, people resist having to start over back at the bottom of a learning curv
Contracts of adhesion (Score:2)
When there is only ONE game in town, a contract of adhesion is a negative thing. It requires the buyer to accept the seller's terms with no questions asked.
With OSM and Apple maps and other sources, GM is not the only game in town. They can set whatever T&Cs they want and the only "adhesion" about it is that you don't get to change their T&Cs. This may seem "draconian" as the article says, but it's EXACTLY the same as Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T, DirecTV, Dish, Amazon, the Wall Street Journal,
Early mapping technology (2004) (Score:3)
In the early noughties my employers were looking for something to do with their mobile communications technology and decided GPS asset tracking had potential. Google were just getting in to the mapping business at the time, didn't really have commercial applications in mind and didn't want to talk to us anyway. So we used MapInfo [wikipedia.org] which got the job done. It was based on Java and was slow unless you threw lots of CPU at it. I spent some time defining "lots" and eventually got map draw times comparable to Google Maps.
The company eventually failed, but in the meantime I attended MapInfo's user conference three times (Miami, Phoenix, Seattle), drove around and generated vast amounts of GPS data, designed pretty maps (until word came down from On High that we had to emulate Google's look and feel) and learned to be deeply suspicious of Java Server Pages. I developed firmware for two mobile tracking devices: one that used two-way paging and one that used CDMA cellular data. Both worked fine. Neither attracted much interest from customers, alas...
...laura
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A lot of places used the Tiger Mapping service from the US Census Bureau. Tiger maps go back into the 1930s. In the 1990s they had the very first online mapping system in 1995. They used to use SGI INDY, Indigo machines. Those boxes were crazy expensive. Then an Origin. Then they moved to ESRI based maps and that whole old system was removed from service.
They also used to sell a CD based map. Ambulances used to use that. I probably still have one of those disks laying around some place.
Everyone behaves the same (Score:2)
Re: Everyone behaves the same (Score:2)
No, one could not argue... except to twist it into your argument. :)
Quote from the official FAQ (emphasis theirs):
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Our city just moved to OpenStreetMaps. (Score:2)
E.g. in their public transport app. (Which is likely the most-installed app in the city.)
Since then, public transportation route planning in OSMand hav become very nice, as all the data is publicly available, and intentionally so.
I was real proud of our city's IT team that day.
In Apples opinion, anyway (Score:2)
It would be nice if sites like Slashdot could notice once in a while that they are being manipulated by existing players in the industry.
This is so blatantly and obviously driven by Apple as to be embarrassing to read.
Only Game in Town? You Sure? (Score:2)
"The trouble is, Google isn't the only game in town anymore."
If it was a trouble people would not be wining, crying and complaining what Google does. They would simply turn to the next "game in town". But they don't, right? Why is it so? Not so easy? Well, then admit it is for YOU the only game in town.
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"wining" should have been "whining". Google translator seems to be the only game in town for me, and it is not the best one. :-D
How hard can mapping be? (Score:3)
I'm not even joking.
We need a project that can take a Videofeed off a ball of cheap smartphone camera modules and the accompaning GPS data and use some neat AI to turn it into maps and 3D.
Yeah, it's not trivial and not everyone will strap a rasberry to their back with some video ball contraption attached while walking through the city, but with today's free software solutions solid mapping can't be that hard.
Are there any foss projects for this?
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They basically have the same problem Apple does. (Score:1)
They like the "gee whiz" factor and people raving about their tech.
They LOVE everyone using their stuff.
But they really don't WANT customers. Or, they don't want customer INTERACTION.
Because the tech is nice, neat and orderly to them.
But dealing with PEOPLE is "messy".
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