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A comment on Google Pay. Parent comment

Re:Google Pay by sorenjan on Monday January 08, 2018 @07:21PM (#16102311)
One of my favorite examples is looking at the Google Trends page for Google Allo [0]. Lots of initial interest at release, but since it didn't add anything to what people already was using, including Google hangouts, interest soon faded away. Google's practice of release early, release often, doesn't really work when entering a market with strong established products. Good luck getting people to try convincing their friends to switch to a different chat app they already tried and didn't like.

Google is known for attracting top engineers, but their product managers seems to be some of the worst in the industry. Where would they be without their ad cash cow? It's been years since I got exited about anything they released. I think I noticed it getting worse right around when Eric Schmidt got replaced as CEO.

[0] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2016-07-01%202...

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Re:Google Pay by dandv on Monday January 08, 2018 @07:38PM (#16102412)
Maps has been improving at an amazing rate, and some people are quite excited about it:

https://www.justinobeirne.com/google-maps-moat

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Re:Google Pay by sorenjan on Monday January 08, 2018 @08:53PM (#16102823)
At least where I live (Sweden) Google Maps is often worse than OpenStreetMap, and there are several other sites with both better aerial photography and map data. I also think Google Maps' white on gray color scheme is hard to read.

I made this as an example [0]. It's Google Maps, OpenStreetMaps, a local competitor (Hitta), and the official government map agency (Lantmäteriet) that Google used to buy their map data from according to their copyright info. Notice several features missing in Google's data, and how bland and low contrast it is in comparison. Speaking of which, try finding this road on Google Maps using your phone when the sun is shining: [1]

Google's aerial photos in the same area is from 2014 and is both lower resolution and older than the two alternatives I looked at.

I still use Google Maps quite a lot, but in my opinion they're slipping and doesn't seem to care about keeping data updated as much as having local guides reviewing restaurants and grocery stores.

[0] https://imgur.com/a/DxImF

[1] https://imgur.com/a/aPtiD

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Re:Google Pay by elaus on Tuesday January 09, 2018 @01:49AM (#16104131)
Google Maps is much more than just a map display though: Things like routing, current/expected traffic or business info (opening times, busy hours, ...) are so much better than anything OSM-related services have to offer right now, especially to non-technical users. Smartphone map apps that use OSM are a lot more technical or convoluted than Google Maps sadly.
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Re:Google Pay by sorenjan on Tuesday January 09, 2018 @04:52PM (#16110490)
Yes, and like I said, I still use Google Maps. But I usually use maps to get an overview over an area and to orient myself, not to navigate to a business in an unknown city. And my point still stands, around here Google have the oldest data and most outdated data.
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Re:Google Pay by jessriedel on Monday January 08, 2018 @07:59PM (#16102523)
Agreed. The "search along route" feature during navigation was a long time coming, but when they finally implemented it they did it perfectly.
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Re:Google Pay by wils1245 on Monday January 08, 2018 @11:05PM (#16103514)
That's a superb writeup. Really uncovers differentiators that I could feel but not put my finger on.
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