Open Location Codes (in Google Maps, for instance) seem to solve all of these problems except for not having arguably memorable words. It also doesn't change in line with earthquakes or other shifts, though I would argue that's a benefit more than a drawback.
You can even omit the first few most significant digits by listing the municipality (where those exist) making it somewhat compatible with existing political divisions.
In places with poor addressing, I regularly have to send Google Maps location links, and this provides an open alternative that can be easily transferred onto paper or spoken through a telephone.
In other words, your example would hold true if they heard and remembered the three words correctly in the wrong order, but that's not a gamble I'd want to take particularly if the API to check codes is restricted.
Not arguing your other points (in fact, I agree), but if you have the app installed on your phone, you do not need a data connection to find your current w3w address.
"Humberside Police also used the system to find a group of foreign nationals, including a pregnant woman in labour, who were trapped inside a shipping container at a port.
The port had over 20,000 containers and we knew that we needed to get to them quickly," said the force's control room supervisor Paul Redshaw.
The group were told to download the app and they were soon found.
There is no doubt in my mind that these incidents could have had very different outcomes had we not been able to use what3words," Mr Redshaw said."
The emergency services see something very useful here. Is there a better way to do it? Lat/Lon numbers just don't cut it.
Maps show the grid as an overlay every 1km so the position is easy to read.
There are further cases mentioned in the article from other police forces.
- South Yorkshire Police used it to find a 65-year-old man who became trapped after falling down a railway embankment in Sheffield.
- North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service found a woman who had crashed her car but was unsure where she was.
- Humberside Police were able to quickly resolve a hostage situation after the victim was able to tell officers exactly where she was being held.
If these are all completely made up, and have made it past the BBC, then I'm rather surprised.
EDIT: I think this must be the incident: https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hull-east-yorkshire-new...
(The report mentions a substantial search, and in particular commends the actions of good doggo PD Logan: https://twitter.com/HPDogSection/status/1103713458334416896)
Anyway, all these cases highlight the need for a much better way for emergency services to automatically receive GPS coordinates from calls - not for some wannabe rent-seeking proprietary app.
* translations so often don't work in a one-to-one fashion, it'd be risky to expect them to do so.
* this is a big deal.
* had you read the article, it specifically explains that you don't need a data connection to determine the address. Also, GPS coordinates are a terrible way to pass locations between humans, numbers are easy to transpose, mess up, forget.
That's hardly a point in What3Words' favor. They dragged words into it where previously there were only numbers so now they're responsible for finding a solution to the problem of words' cultural specificity. I don't think "our coordinates contain zero information that crosses linguistic boundaries" is a good solution to that problem.
* earthquakes and the like _shift locations_ on the crust. The "w3w" address you had for your house isn't at that "w3w" address anymore since that last big quake. Reprint stationery?
* no translation between the English w3w and the Spanish, French, Italian, what-have-you. They're different words altogether. No back and forth.
* It's not open
* if one needs a DATA CONNECTION to find out their current w3w address, they can damn well find the GPS coordinates, too. As a bonus, they don't need a data connection to do that...
See also: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2019/03/why-bother-with-what-three-...