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Comment by reaperducer | Hacker News Reader

As it turns out, that is probably the most popular use case for maps in the world.

Your sentence starts out like you're stating a fact, but then peters out with "probably."

Do you have data on this?

I'd posit the opposite: That exploration is far more used in online maps.

Aside from Uber drivers, SV types, and wannabe road warrior squinters, nobody uses maps for their daily activities. People know where they're going and they go there without consulting technology. That's why we have traffic jams.

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I think this isn't true at all. The vast majority of people I know use maps solely find something like an ATM/gas station/coffee shop/etc and then figuring out how to get there or how long it would take to get there.

We don't have data, but the only people that do are Google and they have designed their UX around this use case. And it has become one of the most used tools on Earth. If we are going to play the 'your comment is bad because you don't have data' game, I think the onus is really on you to prove that the company with all the data is getting it wrong.

> Aside from Uber drivers, SV types, and wannabe road warrior squinters, nobody uses maps for their daily activities. People know where they're going and they go there without consulting technology. That's why we have traffic jams.

I might know where I'm going but I don't always know how to get there so I use Google Maps all the time. I don't use it for my daily commute but if I'm going to a friend's or something I'll usually use it.

When I sit in my friends cars we also use it all the time. Often we're going to a restaurant or some other location that we don't often go to.

For exploration my friends pretty much just use Yelp or Google Search. I sometimes but rarely use Google Maps for this because I find that the reviews are usually much lower quality and Google Maps is too slow (I have an old Pixel 2)

I think it depends where you are driving. I live in a large city and there are way more people using maps for their daily activities that you might think. In my parents neighborhood in the suburbs, and in rural areas, I think you're probably right. If there are only a few ways to get somewhere, you probably aren't using maps.

> Your sentence starts out like you're stating a fact, but then peters out with "probably."

Fair enough. I'd argue that I put the word probably in the first half of the sentence, so I don't see it as "petering out", but fair enough.

I will agree with the critique that I'm making an assumption about mapping use cases, and don't have hard data. I'm happy to be corrected by any real data on the topic.

People use maps for daily activities all the time. Not to find where they're trying to get to, but for how to get somewhere more quickly - ie. public transport directions, or if it's quicker to walk than go by bus/train/tram.

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