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0 pointssimfree4y ago0 comments

Google Maps has a better data collection method (bugging their userbase to collect data for them, encouraging users to collect even more as Google Scouts) and also the dataset of Waze, while Apple has a much more laborious process where an Apple Contractor (initially in Austin or Cupertino) modifies points of interest, business hours, road alignments, etc manually.

Apple started to ship this operation over to India 5ish years ago, and their contractors over there produce much worse results as they are not hiring professional geographers with degrees like they did stateside.

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4 comments · 1 top-level

toastal4y ago· 3 in thread

I wish more people would realize they are literally working for Google without getting paid to do this work. If it's out of a greater sense of helping people and contributions, OpenStreetMap needs to be better known.

drusepth4y ago

If the goal is just helping people, why would OpenStreetMaps be preferred over Google Maps?

I love answering questions on Maps and providing information for others (in my eyes: effectively working for them, not Google). Google Maps seems like it has a significantly larger user base, so my contributions help significantly more people.

It's very much a help-and-be-helped community, too. I can ask questions about businesses and have answers from other people in just a couple minutes. I don't imagine I'd have the same quality/speed asking questions on OSM (if they even have that feature?).

Andrew_nenakhov4y ago

Russian tech giant Yandex (they mostly do everything that Google does: search, maps, email, etc) has a so-called "People's map", filled by volunteers who transfer rights for their edits to Yandex for free the use in their closed commercial project. I always wondered why these volunteers don't work on OpenStreetMap instead.

ygra4y ago

Perhaps they simply don't know about it. OSM is doing its own thing and doesn't market itself much to the general audience. But for things that Google/Yandex are grabbing for free (opening hours, whether shops still exist, etc.), StreetComplete should be known much better, IMHO.

It doesn't really help OSM that its home page is considered just an example of what can be done with the data and not positioning it as an alternative to Google/Bing Maps is somewhat intentional.

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