Grab has been using OSM for years and they contribute back. I don't see where the innovation is here?

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Grab

It was impossible a few years ago, when the OSM data wasn't good enough and the cost of acquiring the data themselves was too high.

If the managers and ICs agree that something is impossible but they will do or have done it anyways, then that makes a pretty good case for them getting promotions.

I have thought that some major service migrated to OSM by 2019. I can’t remember which, or even if it was a success. But I didn’t realize the data was that bad just three years ago.

Then again, Apple Maps started getting sorted out around then too iirc.

> Then again, Apple Maps started getting sorted out around then too iirc.

And we assume completely coincidentally? Not that Apple Maps, like Google Maps, pulls in data volunteered by the OSM community (both corporate and personal members), packages and improves (sometimes "improves") it, then locks it away behind paid API calls?

In this case and many others, the free and community built project enabled, assisted, or powered the multi-billion dollar tech conglomorate.

I recognize I might sound bitter or dismissive of companies mapping the world and giving it away to consumers for free, but so much is built on openness that so many companies just eat without giving back.

> Not that Apple Maps, like Google Maps, pulls in data volunteered by the OSM... then locks it away

You have that backwards, at least for some companies.

> How Facebook, Apple and Microsoft are contributing to OSM

At the State of the Map conference in Milan, the teams from Microsoft, Apple and Facebook presented their projects, describing how they are working with communities.

https://www.theodi.org/article/how-are-facebook-apple-and-mi...

I've never seen any cite for Google contributing their data to OSM.

> You have that backwards, at least for some companies

Absolutely I do - my overall (and apparently poorly communicated) point was more about Apple pulling in data from OSM to improve their product. They (and others) do contribute back, I only meant it's hardly coincidental that OSM and Apple Maps improved around the same time.

> I've never seen any cite for Google contributing their data to OSM.

This is what I'm so up-in-arms about: people spend so much time adding to Google Maps for free (not even necessarily via OSM), to be locked away behind paid (past a limit) API calls. Perhaps I should have been more explicit in that many companies contribute back, and Google being an outlier in that.

> it's hardly coincidental that OSM and Apple Maps improved around the same time

True, but in Apple's case, the massive improvements stemmed from no longer relying solely on data licensed from others, and starting a program back in 2018 to collect their own map data from scratch.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/29/apple-is-rebuilding-maps-f...

Apple Maps doesn't use OSM for developed countries, but for places like SEA and Africa. It's places like Facebook and Mapbox who use OSM for everything IIRC (don't trust me here as I didn't check this.)

Actually, does Google Maps use OSM for anything?

Google dont directly use osm, as far as we know, but they or subcontractors check the changelogs and often add newly built things hours/ days after they get added to osm, presumably from their own sources as the data is not identical.

> Lyft seems to really lack any imagination if _that_ was considered impossible.

Depends on how you are making the maps. If you're paying someone to trudge around/trace out satellite photos, then yes, its not very imaginative.

If you are using SLAM to generate maps automatically, then thats a different beast entirely. Only a handful of companies were able to do that in 2019, two got bought by meta (who then fucked up the tech, well done zuck) two went bankrupt and one was aquired by lyft.

What's more shocking is that they decided using 250 high paid EPD workers to not pay a Google Map licensing was the way to go.

They could have incubated at least 10 different products during this critical time.

it's not about not paying Google Map licensing. There are, as mentioned, geo features like pickup ETA, trip ETA and cost, drop-off location photos and features that Google doesn't provide at all.

Given that Lyft's only rival, Uber, is partnering with Google's Waymo, seems like a prescient move to get out from Google's thumb.