I’m guessing that’s the point at which we pivot back into ‘Oh noes, Google closes every unprofitable service’
Google providing these services is contingent on them being linked together, both for Google and for the user.
They charge phone companies billions of dollars for the use of Maps. That's why Apple made their own version. It's not exactly a cash cow, but they're not providing it for free either.
Can you elaborate on this? Are you talking about their javascript APIs[1], or for the right to preload the app on their subcribers' phones?
It has taken Apple billions of dollars and over five years to get anywhere close, Nokia built an actually pretty reasonable Mapping solution and had to more or less give up the ghost due to the expense.
Validating that the routes on the map actually exists and continue to exist more or less requires access to mobility data from every street, walkway, nook and cranny on the planet.
Any mapping solution able to achieve the requisite scale will run into exactly the same issues with data centralization. Who exactly do you see entering the market?
Google doesn't just have a perceived monopoly. Or perhaps monopoly isn't the right word, but I also can't think of a better one. It is about its pervasiveness and presence on too many markets at once, coupled with availability of too much data.
None of those five companies you vaguely hint at might themselves be a better basket on their own but they are at least five additional baskets. Removing a service from the most pervasive company is a win in itself, IMO.
It's precisely the pervasiveness and availability of the data that drives the quality of the mapping service. I'm curious as to how you think you can have one without the other.
Smartphone OS and location reporting feeds location data in which improves and validates the maps
Fact that other services are tied to the maps drives usage of the Maps themselves, increasing their quality further
Other companies, like Nokia, have tried to create a business from Maps without the install base
Apple has the install base and after five years billions of dollars is approaching a usable product
Wouldn't say Nokia's approach was a complete failure, but to pretend the quality is anywhere similar is delusional
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_(company)#/media/File:HER...
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Certainly you aren't going to be able to create a decent Maps service without centralizing and processing an enormous amount of data
Do you think it would be impossible to have well-made maps without Google? Do you think Google's wide and heterogeneous basket of unrelated products and services is a necessary requirement to produce well-made maps, such that no company without it couldn't hope of achieving it?
For instance, would the quality of Google Maps be appreciably decreased if Gmail was moved to another company? My position is that no, it would not, so that would already be a win. I think a lot of services could be shaved off in this way without loss of map quality.
On the other hand, if Google's map product is superior to everything else by such a large margin, then certainly it is a viable product in itself because people still need a high-quality map. People would still install this app on their phones, providing opportunity for map validation. Importantly, people could then be asked whether they want to share this data to improve the service, which many would do, I'm sure.
> Certainly you aren't going to be able to create a decent Maps service without centralizing and processing an enormous amount of data
This also seems suspicious if we take it to mean user data, acquired incidentally, from users using other, unrelated services. We already know Google uses streetcars for mapping and in this case, it is a deliberate mapping effort and therefore the process by which it is converted to maps is easy to understand.
But how are we imagining incidentally collected user data (from usage of other services) to improve map quality? Yes, smartphone OS location validates it, in the sense that you may notice something is wrong if people start walking through buildings on your map.
It's hard for me to imagine that there is a hard requirement for the map company to be the smartphone OS company before this can happen. I mean, even if the map was produced by some other company, it would still get used by smartphone owners, providing the same opportunity. If this map was good, it would then get used by other services as well, achieving the same feedback loop you mention.
By the way, I use OpenStreetMaps on my phone and its error rate is about as high as Google Maps on the places I've tried it on. I can't help but how much better it would be if it actually had a lot of money behind it.
Honestly, the turn away from making money from the service itself vs using it as a front for some other, more abstract ploy is where tech has gone wrong in the past couple decades.
1: because it replaced OSM…
No one forces you to stay on Android.
And how would splitting off AdWords be good for the consumer? Do you like paying for your search engine, Gmail, maps, and more?
These services could still all be free because they could sell their ad space to AdWords. What it would mean though is that other email / maps / video services would be able to compete, as would other ad networks.
You would also be better off as a business to build your brand outside of YouTube even if you did use it for hosting.
There would be no need for that in principle, AdWords could buy personal information from google.
(Again, I'm not talking about other issues with Google's market dominance such as those related to AdWords from the perspective of ad buyers or Android licensing conditions)