Waze always baffled me. No one I know uses it and most never heard of it. Google had pretty sophisticated data/algo of their own when they paid $1+B for this thing. ELI5 - why should any one care about Waze?
> No one I know uses it and most never heard of it.
Intersting — everyone uses it in California, to the point that it strongly affects traffic patterns[2]. Where are you?
[1] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/dash [2] http://www.gq.com/story/waze-ruining-los-angels-side-streets
It has international appeal as well, the map editing feature has made it a hit in places with less than perfect map data:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2014/10/2...
Kind of fun thing for your kids to do on a long drive. That might be why the cartoon like interface.
Like Pokemon Go, the constant network traffic + GUI interaction makes it huge battery drain. I deleted the app from my phone.
Google map's traffic info is very good. I suspect Google paid that much likely because potentially FB, MSFT or Amazon "might" get it and use it is a beach head to enter the Mobile Map App market. If that's the case, it is a very good play on Waze's part to get the high valuation.
There's something seriously wrong with society when both kids and their parents are working together to evade the police, and obviously have no respect for the police. And the problem isn't with the kids or their parents. Average citizens should not see their police as an enemy group generally working against their best interests.