invisibull on Nostr: The reason most people cannot live without Google maps is not the map itself. It's ...

The reason most people cannot live without Google maps is not the map itself. It's the amount of data on businesses and every little thing around you. Not to mention reviews. They realized this early on, leveraged the enormous amount of data they already had, and then sat back and enjoyed as people were flocking to add more data points. An average Joe thinks he's doing some community service by contributing when, in reality, he is just making Google more money.

Google is a dick for keeping the vast amount of community gathered data proprietary. That should be a public good, inter-op with any other applicartion, etc.

We have all the tools at our disposal. The biggest challenge will be catching up with tech giants, and teaching people to invest their time and goodwill in true open systems rather than in a proprietary garbage.

Btw, I wonder if some mass scrapers exist that would take (back) data from Google to OpenStreetMaps?