This is based on GPS. The three words are a hash of the coordinates; this seems more user-friendly and less error-prone than "14.1234567,50.35466, wait, no, 50.53466, or is it -50.53466,14.1234567?".

As opposed to e.g. the Maidenhead locator, this has the properties of a hash - in other words, isn't trivially reversible, and you need the w3w company to provide you with the location, each and every time (jackpot!).

> "14.1234567,50.35466, wait, no, 50.53466, or is it -50.53466,14.1234567?".

All of which are fine for someone lost in X mountain range. The operator on the other side will know whether -50.* or 14.* is latitude or longitude.

Also, you would just read the numbers from your screen, no ambiguity there.

Thank you, thank you. You have demonstrated the flaw perfectly: didn't even notice the swapped digits, which would send SAR to someplace plausible yet far away.

I'm at steeple, bound, force...

People? No steeple ... S as in Sam, steeple.

Was that mound or found?

B as in boy, o as in Oscar, u as in unit....

Ok, steeple, boy, Oscar...

There is a reason the military alphabet exists and all numbers are pronounced as is (except for the occasional Niner to avoid confusing nine with 5)

I'm pretty sure long-pressing your location in Google Maps and reading out two numbers is a fair bit easier than downloading a new app that you've never heard of.

Sure, network effect and all that. OTOH, I distinctly recall being told of a new search engine I've never heard of, I think it was called "Google". Everything was new and unknown once ;)

@IshKebab: Okay, I went ahead and tried. GMaps gives you both the GPS coordinates and the Open Location Code. That's significantly better than complaint above "it's popular because it's popular". Fair point.

It's faster to read than long lat and it probably uses gps. The innovation is in the user friendly hash table of Geo locations

And apparently it has to feed 100 employees (what are they even doing?)

I doubt that's true for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Location_Code and so I'd be less concerned about incentives changing over time (also, it doesn't need a central maintainer for the hash map).

3 employees to maintain the system. 97 employees doing sales, marketing, and PR.

Olc Isn't as user friendly as three words

It's the same letters around the globe though.

If you have a bunch of folks exchanging the following 3 Word Addresses, you better hope they get it textual in a medium that allows copy & paste - in which case OLC is no worse off.

语焉不详.思潮.眼球 (962CWVRJ+9X)

ज्ञात.महाकाय.भौहों (9G4729FC+39)

(58H58WHV+GX) القول.تفريق.لأهتم

เคี้ยว.สมุนไพร.ผัก (9F4MG95X+7M)

штанишки.вытер.разбавлять (8GW3XJP2+RV)

And then there's terms of use:

- For 3 Word Addresses you (hopefully) get "a non-assignable, non-transferable, non-exclusive and revocable licence". (note: revocable)

- And worse, with the list above I might have violated their ToS: "Further, you must not publish (yourself or via a third party) any list or database of 3 Word Addresses with 3 Word Address Locations".

- It's also not allowed to provide a service that translates a 3 Word Address into something else (such as OLC or GPS coordinates) so they could be used with software or devices that happen to use different schemes: "you may use any 3 Word Address in any way that you wish, provided ... you in no way use 3 Word Addresses or 3 Word Address Locations to provide or seek to provide a product or service the same as or similar to any product or service provided by us"

- Finally, if they ever decide to shut down their server, all your 3 Word Address are gone as "any copying, re-utilisation, extraction, reproduction or redistribution of the what3words Materials ... is expressly prohibited".

"You can build such a system quite trivially", etc. Turning a long numeric sequence into a memorable phrase easy to input with both text and speech solves a real problem.