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Comment by sametmax | Hacker News Reader

This assume Google can't do anything about it. But it can.

It can deny the use of it's services to people using ad-blockers.

It's possible that we see a migration from youtube. Maybe some people will be ok with migrating from gmail (probably not the majority though. I did it and it was HARD). But very few people will stop using the search engine or google map, because it has absolutely zero decent competitor. I tried them all for months, fairly. Their are not even on the same planet.

So apart from a few geeks, people will just disable the ad blocking software if google decide to force their hand.

Besides, wait for the W3C DRM standard + webassembly to be used to hack very hard to block ads...

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> google map, because it has absolutely zero decent competitor.

I am using https://openstreetmap.org and have no problems with it.

There's nothing wrong with OSM but you can't pretend it is on the same level as Google Maps. Where is streetview? Business opening times? Reviews? Phone numbers? Directions? Turn-by-turn navigation? Live traffic? Historical traffic?

Google Maps now has a live busynessometer for some businesses. And 3D models of entire cities, even non-London ones.

As a traditional paper map OSM is fine, but Google Maps is now far more than that.

> Where is streetview? Business opening times? Reviews? Phone numbers? Directions? Turn-by-turn navigation? Live traffic? Historical traffic?

Traffic and street view are hard, and expensive, to do because you need to drive around the place to take photos, or to have enough data points for traffic information.

Reviews are hard because they are subjective, and how do you deal with spam, with moderation, with fake reviews, etc.

The other things? They're in OSM (to varing degrees of completness):

* Business opening times: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:opening_hours * Phone Numbers: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:phone * Simple 3d modelling: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/3D * Directions/turn-by-turn has existed for a long time, e.g. on the main website itself, or software like Graphhopper or OSRM.

Yes OSM is has much less features than Google, but the OSM Foundation only has income of about £97,000 per year. Google has considerible more financial strength.

You are completely missing the point. This is not a critic of the OSM project. Most of the commenters love that it exists. It's just that if you click on your mobile on google map and osm map, you get a vastly different experience. It's objective.

Yes, you're right, they are different things. I'm just pointing out that OSM isn't as bad for some of the things you mentioned.

(BTW there isn't one osm map app for mobile devices)

> Where is streetview?

Far from perfect, but it exists: http://openstreetcam.org/map/

Open street map don't tell you to go to the left ride of the lane so you can take a better right turn in 100m in real time, then inform you that you have to alternatives to your current trip given the current traffic spike if you wish.

By itself, OSM is just a geo database so it's somewhat misleading to state "what it doesn't tells you".

In fact, OSM is perfectly capable of representing lane restrictions (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Lanes) and some of the existing OSM clients (such as OsmAnd) offer 'lane assist' (arguably, it might not be as good as Google's but there's no fundamental problem in achieving feature parity).

And while the GMaps feature of offering you route alternatives based on the current traffic is nice, the "price" you are paying for it is unconditionally sharing your location with google while the GMaps app is running (or even at all times, depending on you settings). I personally don't feel comfortable with that compromise.

> there's no fundamental problem in achieving feature parity

Sure, but if you're going to make that argument, all software is equivalent, because you can just implement the stuff you want and delete the stuff that gets in the way.

This is not entirely true for proprietary software :)

We can do it != we have it.

If there is a choice between having to watch annoying ads and not having those details, then I go for the more basic system that is ad free. (I do use openstreetmap for 99% for my navigation, mostly because I care about open navigation systems)

No doubt, real time traffic information can be developed for openstreetmap. But if and when it happens depends on where others drop the ball.

For example, current navigation systems built into cars tend to be completely out of date and mostly unsupported long before the car itself is end of life. So this is an area where openstreetmap might take over.

OSM actually had ads way before Google Maps: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mappam

I don't think you can compare the ad tracking that Google does now, and what the OSM website used to do years ago. That wiki page is almost 10 years old, with the website mentioned (mappam.com) no longer working.

Though since OSM predates Google Maps, it makes sense that OSM would have another first :P

You are on HN. You are not a basic consumer. Selective bias at his best.

After being driven through very convoluted paths a bunch of times in the name of saving time and realtime updates, I'd say I very much prefer the consistent sane paths created by months old openstreet maps on my SD card (using mapfactor Navigator)

Almost useless outside a few cities in a few western countries.

The first time I tried OSM there were only a couple of roads in place of nearby towns, tried again a couple of years later and everything was there, even more detailed than google's maps

So it can definitely change.

> But very few people will stop using the search engine or google map, because it has absolutely zero decent competitor.

I have been using DuckDuckGo as my search engine for a couple of years now, and I don't miss Google at all. bang! and instant answers are fantastic.

Yeah, but you are on HN. A very poor representative sample.

"It's possible that we see a migration from youtube."

Funny you say that because I don't use any of Google's services save for YouTube. I'm a musician and that's simply where the musicians are. Other than that I don't use any other Google products or services - no search, no maps, no docs - nothing. Only YouTube.

I suppose you don't use Chrome, or Android either, nor the iphone search button ? Because that would make it a seriously small minority.

Check out https://www.bitchute.com/, peer to peer content sharing platform.

Google Maps is good and I haven't found a replacement, but DuckDuckGo is now so good you don't even realise you're using it.

Search a place in google: you get time table, phone numbers, a map to go and if it's opened right now.

Search anything in another language than english, and it works.

Search something in a very specific area of expertise that is not computing, and google will find it.

Search for something with a very weird, contextual explanation with terrible typos, still works.

Ddg, as much as I like it, is very far away from delivering this experience.

I used ddg for a year, but realized I ended up typing !g for most of my queries.

Besides, the HN crowd is very tech saavy, they can do without the Google magic. Most people don't even know what a URL is.

But google search has gotten lot worse to find reputable information. Eg try find that is sugar bad for you. I at least get tons of sensational click bait articles instead actual reputable information.

I'm getting an infobox summarising https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/eating-too-much-added-su... when searching for [sugar health]. Then, the first result is the decidedly non-hypolically titled "Is Sugar Really Bad for You? It Depends" from The New York Times

Meanwhile, Bing gives me "10 reasons why sugar is bad for you" and "Sweet Poison: Why Sugar is Ruining our Health".

It's not even close.

And this here is exactly why I don't like Google Search. It will return 100 different results for 100 different people all searching for the same string.

Yup.. It giving me this infobox http://www.healthline.com/nutrition/10-disturbing-reasons-wh...

The only thing that seems to have worsened is image search, when search by image was first added it was easy to get other copies of an image, now with AI magic it seems to find results in the same category better but not the exact image you're looking for.

It's true that Google search has some fancy features that DDG doesn't have, but I have found that the core search results are very similar. DDG has become a solid search engine with some of its own more specialised fancy features.

Sometimes DDG feels less convoluted. Not just because of Google's excessive ad overload, but also because Google guesses too much for my taste. They think they know me better than I do and that turns out to be incorrect often enough to be annoying.

Where Google does have an unassailable lead is in maps. Their "explore" feature is extremely useful for finding places to eat & drink. Directions are great. Google maps is simply excellent.

The issue with DDG is that it isn't really friendly towards non-americans. This is not good.

DuckDuckGo uses Google and Bing as backends though..

"In fact, DuckDuckGo gets its results from over four hundred sources. These include hundreds of vertical sources delivering niche Instant Answers, DuckDuckBot (our crawler) and crowd-sourced sites (like Wikipedia, stored in our answer indexes). We also of course have more traditional links in the search results, which we source from Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex."[1]

[1] https://duck.co/help/results/sources

One way to look at it: consumers don't spend any money on Google products. So they can continue to use youtube, gmail, search, maps, etc. Maybe just less if ads get too annoying. At the same time, Google's real customers (advertisers) are not tied to any of Google's products. They can place ads where it has most effect.

most ads on youtube really annoying,sometime extra loud to get your attention. There are some creative ads i do enjoy watching. All this means that you can't pepper people wish shit visuals and expect respect. google text adverts - good thing, everything else tries to goad me into acting - feels cheap dirty. I gather they have to tone down their ads and respect their audience? After all and they vying for our attention

>most ads on youtube really annoying,sometime extra loud to get your attention.

True. The insane loudness of youtube ads got my girlfriend to install an ad-blocker for the very first time even though she is not opposed to relevant ads at all.

> It can deny the use of it's services to people using ad-blockers.

This would be a good way to finish off Google search and Gmail, and Calendar, and Drive.

> google map, because it has absolutely zero decent competitor

Dedicated navigation device from Garmin in the car and Openstreetmap for everything else.

Most people will not pay hundreds of euros for a device that can get them the same service they have for free on their phone, ads or not.

As Openstreetmap, the debate is already active in other comments.

>>It can deny the use of it's services to people using ad-blockers.

Many news websites in India did this recently. Of which many have rolled back. Why? There is always a competitor to which your customers can go. And when they do, you lose users to them, may be even permanently.

Sooner or later you realize its better they come to you, instead of going to competition.

Isn't this the whole point behind Android? You want your OS to run on most of the worlds mobile devices, even if you give it away for free, you still get traffic in return.

I don't buy it. iTune or netflow are very popular despite pirating even while being bloated, buggy expensive services.

Pirating is free, instant, with no DRM and no waiting time.

But when a service offer a tremendous value, it can't be quited easily.

I started using apple maps a few months ago. This far I haven't had a single reason to look back.

Search engine wise they are clearly on top. On the other hand, do enough social engineering and people will start using a worse product regardless.

Youtube could of course force ads on its users, but that would also make those users less interested in youtube compared to competing platforms.

This is not overly simple.

I don't know how clearly they are on top. I switched to DuckDuckGo more than a year ago and I rarely use Google these days, mostly for the occasional programming-related search that DDG doesn't get right.

You are tech a saavy english speaking HN reader. Now let's see what a mum from Spain that spend most of her time of facebook says.

Who do you think click on ads, you or her ?

For a mum from Spain, the difference would be even smaller. She probably wouldn't even notice she was using a different search engine, the results would be pretty similar to Google's.

As I said, youtube is possible.

Apple map ? Outside of the US, not even close.

Google search, just forget about it.

I've been using Apple Maps in the UK for the past year after buying a car with CarPlay. I also used it in hire cars in a couple of other European countries. It's pretty good.

Traffic is accurate, although it is be a little slower to update than Google Maps (it seems to be ~5 mins behind). Directions are spot on and the UI (at least in CarPlay) is clear and detailed. The only thing that's poor compared to Google Maps is the search but it's certainly a decent alternative and it's come a long way since it was first released.

The only thing I dislike about Apple Maps is its screwed up hierarchy of importance. Local trains stations, leisure centres, schools etc seem to be afforded the same level of importance as the local nail bar. It's horribly cluttered.

Apple maps is not usable in eastern Europe not even for short trips, in my quite popular tourist country they're at least 5 years out of date.

I can speculate that outside of Europe its even worse.

"Outside of the US, not even close."

I'm in the UK I use both Apple maps, Google maps, OpenStreetMap and Bing maps regularly (in addition to the built in nav system in my car) and for me the only noticeable strength that Google has is streetview. The "satellite" view in Google Maps where I live is actually so old (12+ years) that it's actually becoming useful for researching historical stuff...

Apple Maps in Singapore is perfect since they added support for public transportation (bus system is a little confusing in Singapore). Now it's so easy to take a bus home when you got lost.

I use apple maps in Sweden. Works flawless. A few years ago it was totally useless.

>But very few people will stop using the search engine or google map

Bing now controls 33% of the search engine space, and Google's share of the market is in decline.

Google has a monetization issue, not a product issue. People love their products, but they hate their ads.

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