Hacker News Reader

Comment by danaliv | Hacker News Reader

> they are actively getting in the way of why I would use their product

No they aren't. They're being completely transparent about this and giving you the option to keep the old behavior with a one-time settings change. So what's the problem exactly?

View on HN

Google also explicitly says that it only does it when the ETAs are very close, so realistically, it will still be doing what you want. It feels pretty extreme to write such an angry comment about maybe getting a route than 1-2% slower.

Wasn't intended to be angry. It's more frustration that I used to love Google Maps, but over the years it just gets less and less useful. I can't see street names like I used to, for instance. Now I have to have the overhead of choosing a route, when I used to know that the default is the fastest. Sure, I can turn it off in settings. But at what point does this get to be Windows Explorer, where the first thing I do on a new Windows install is invert pretty much all the settings?

I guess maybe I'd like a little bit of say in how the software I use gets updated. I don't know how that would be implemented, but this got me thinking that maybe there is a way that this software thing could be move a little closer towards a partnership than the autocratic "hey we're going to arbitrarily change this piece of software you use frequently". (You can see similar thoughts with people complaining how Big Sur uses more space, or the complaints when GMail changed things to be less dense.)

Hypothetically, given the choice between a 10 minute, higher-environmental-impact route and an 11-minute, lower-impact one: Are you really going to take the literally selfish, worse-for-the-planet route to save one minute? Wouldn't you like to make a small "sacrifice" (the choice is only given when the ETAs are similar) that might help slow the destruction of the only environment we have?

I don't think it's fair to call it "selfish". If I am someone who only drives a few thousand miles a year or even less (this is actually true for me), then wanting to save a minute or two isn't exactly selfish compared to a person who drives 10-20k miles a year. You can't really judge on the scale of one trip.

I'm fine with the feature though as long as it gives an option. In fact, I would enjoy having the new capability to optimize for fuel economy.

IF there are 10-20k "people like you" making the "not really selfish" choice, they're doing as much harm as the person who drives 10-20k miles a year.

It's about network effects. The more people we get to make the more eco-friendly choice, the better the place gets for all of us.

Actually no, if there are 10-20k people like me only driving a few thousand miles instead of 10-20k miles per year we'd be much better off! (which btw is the average in the US)

You aren't going to shame me over a few miles when I make a concerted effort to drive 1/10 of the average American, sorry.

But hey good news, Google is abandoning remote work and making its employees drive to and from work every day probably negating any benefit from this feature whatsoever.

Depends on how much impact is actually reduced by that minute. It's going to be cool to see the comparisons in the app.

Define “close”. Is it a fixed threshold or a percentage of trip length?

I agree it's a bit vague, but realistically I would hope/think it's never more than min(2%, 5m). It obviously won't be 2m slower on a 4m ride, or 30m slower on a 5 hour ride. I don't think any reasonable person would say those are "close".

To literally answer your rhetorical question: dark patterns. Not that I think the behavior is wrong - choosing the more energy efficent of two comparable manuevers just makes sense in general. But "Changes to default behavior to change consumer outcomes." are literally dark patterns and rhetorically likened to mind control whenever they want to cast a company or industry as a villain.

"Dark patterns" is what we call it when it's done in the interest of the company, and usually against the interest of the consumer. In this case, being for the public interest, it's aligned with the much more benign "Libertarian Paternalism" approach outlined in the book Nudge - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_%28book%29

Reply on news.ycombinator.com