Most people who just want to eat an apple (even an apple a day) don't have bandwidth to pick them. Offer them the option of picking apples at an orchard for free vs. buying a bag of apples at a grocery, and most people will go buy the bag.

The same happens with an OS. Most people don't want a free labor-intensive solution. They want something that just works, runs their software and stays out of the way. People don't want to think about what OS they use.

Yes, typical users want a "just works" solution. But yc-news commenters aren't typical users. In the time it takes to post a comment on this forum, anyone here can just fix the problem themselves using OSM's very simple point-and-click editor.

Contrast to Google Maps, where the process of getting a change made can take weeks or months - if the fixes ever show up at all.

There really is a lot of power in having a map of the world that we can all "just edit".

IMO, HN readers can't be the target audience of a mapping product that's being used as a backbone of so many large projects. You have to make it painfully simple and give people a real incentive to do it.

The act of contributing an edit to OSM is vastly simpler than fixing a kernel bug. But OSM does still have the massive barrier to entry in that if you are using an application built on OSM data, it is usually not easy to realize this and understand that OSM is where you need to go to fix a map error, unless you are already familiar with OSM.

> it is usually not easy to realize this and understand that OSM is where you need to go to fix a map error

The OSM licence requires that people using OSM data attribute OSM, i.e. that their users are aware that the data comes from OSM. In theory this means that the final user should know that OSM is where they should go to fix data issues.

But, alas, it's often not followed that well...

If you're not already familiar with what OSM is, the copyright notice is really not going to be enough to alert the user to the fact that OSM works differently from commercial map data suppliers and can easily accept user contributions.

So when my grand mother has an issue with her app, she’s sure to notice that it says “open street maps” in the corner and go to the website, make an account, and contribute more accurate data? I don’t think so.

Really, it’s not even an age thing. I work in tech. I visit HN on the regular. OSM, Google, and Apple all have inaccurate data about my daily commute to work. They all say a path that exists doesn’t. Have I don’t anything about it? Absolutely not.

Imagine the average Pokémon Go user; if they even read the boilerplate that stood between them and playing the game, how many of them understood what role OSM data played in their experience, realized what the word “open” meant, and correctly concluded that they could do something to influence/correct the situation vs just thinking the game had a bug or glitch?

Also 99/1 rule. Inaccuracy can be not a significant nuisance/worth the effort/known to 1% who contribute.

The point is that nobody is going to drive a hundred miles out of their way to pick apples.