Comment by rickspencer3 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rickspencer3 | Hacker News Reader

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I'm really glad that projects like this exist.

I note that they site privacy as their #1 advantage:

  * Respects your privacy 
  * Saves your battery 
  * No unexpected mobile data charges

In my opinion, people have given up caring about privacy and expect to receive an inferior experience from products that proclaim this. Therefore, again imo, products that focus on privacy and such will remain niche.

I suspect that the world is ready for paid services that provide a better Ux. I am thinking about how Netflix supposedly put a dent in piracy. People were willing to pay for content with a better Ux.

Aside from saving battery and no surprised mobile data charges, the list many other benefits:

  * No ads 
  * No annoying registration 
  * No mandatory tutorials 
  * No noisy email spam 
  * No push notifications 
  * No crapware

I wonder if a project could charge a small monthly fee if they focused on these user benefits that everyone cares about, and partially use that money to support OSM and partially use the money to support themselves?

> People were willing to pay for content with a better Ux.

If I may run with this in an irrelevant tangent for a moment, I actually feel like Netflix's UX (on their PC client) is worse (in some ways) than pirate streaming sites I've seen. The main pain point for me is that Netflix tries to optimize for engagement and in so doing, conceals a massive back catalogue of things I'll never see they have unless I try to go looking for them.

By contrast, some easily found pirate streaming sites simply have a running list of whatever new content they've acquired regardless of popularity/advertising budget/etc. When I just want to watch _something_, seeing new stuff pretty much constantly is actually a bonus even if it's not always as polished as the top stuff that sticks to the top of Netflix's recommendations for months at a time. Also, pirate sites benefit from not observing the publisher-enforced balkanization of content across Netflix/Amazon/HBO/etc.

Of course, piracy's still illegal, but my point is I think at least for a certain segment of their potential market, Netflix's UX still has room for improvement.

Spot on. Same goes for Steam/etc vs pirate game content sites. Random/latest lists are great

Why don't piracy sites share more BLM content, BIPOC, and promote causes such as universal basic income? Seems like it would be something the users would really want.

OSMAnd+ plus does exactly that.

OrganicMaps looks like it might have a better UI though.

I don't like OSMAnd+ because on Android panning and scrolling around is slow even if you have pre-downloaded a map. Other apps have a more fluid interface.

OSMAnd plus is only free on F-Droid, on an iOS device it's pretty expensive or limited.

The full version for Android was about 12 bucks. The major difference, at least to my understanding, is the unlimited download of maps.

For me that's the killer argument and absolutely worth the price.

I think it really speaks for the developers to make it available for free to F-Droid users and personally I think it's a low price for a - for me - great app.

Yeah, I guess you are right, you get a lot for those 12 euros (or whatever it is, I can't really find it, but I remember a screen with costs for extra maps, altitude data, etc).

Edit: Ah found it, unlimited maps are 12.99 eur once, OsmAnd Live (Wikipedia offline integration and Altitude lines and shades) are 7.99 euros a year. This is all free on F-Droid.

It's free on F-Droid because they haven't bothered to implement technical countermeasures to unpaid downloads. The app developers are still updating that content and providing the bandwidth.

The Play Store fees are effectively voluntary donations to the devs & the OpenStreetMap project. If you really want to pay nothing, they’re not going to stop you - F-Droid is right there.

Yeah, that's one way to put it.

Really, F-Droid is so small it's understandable that they don't do anything about it.

Wondered what expensive meant, On iOS full featured is currently 2/mo or 8/yr, no lifetime license.

The routing of OSMAnd+ is limited to a few hundred kilometers. On holidays I do do longer trips. OrganicMaps should still have the contraction-hierarchy routing which scales better for longer distance routing.

OSMAnd doesn’t always have routing limited to a few hundred kilometers. If one is cycle-touring, then the Brouter engine plugin for OSMAnd can be installed and that generates pretty quickly very long-distance routes.

But with regard to planning long car journeys, there is always the option of generating the route using one of the several OSM-based routing engines on the web, then downloading a GPX file, opening it in OSMAnd, and telling OSMAnd that is the route you want to follow.

I just add intermediary way-points for long routes. Works well enough.

Not sure why you're downvoted, it's a legit problem, especially if practically any other engine doesn't have a problem with it. In reality I think I'd just split my route to get around the problem and call it a day, but it was convenient to not think about this, when planning my 800 km drive.

I just tested, OSMAnd generates a 900 km route on my phone in one go, in about 10 seconds.

I tested it too, and ended up generating an 1000 km route without a problem. It was giving me "Ending point too far from nearest road" - until I figured out that the problem was the missing maps. As long as you have at least the road map downloaded for the whole route, it does the job.

That's what the "Donate to support" links are for I guess.

But this no-ad is hugely under-rated. The web overall is not worse place simply because of overflow of ads. And Google or big players can't do anything about it they that's their main income source.

We need a LetsEncrypt styled disruption here. The field is ripe. Waiting for some player.

right, but I'm talking full on paid, like Neeva. Such services can offer personalization because they can support themselves without selling your data. If you trust them to keep their word, they can use your usage history and data only for your own benefit.

Yeah, I'm ready to pay for an excellent maps experience

I have started using Neeva

> In my opinion, people have given up caring about privacy and expect to receive an inferior experience from products that proclaim this.

Such as Apple products?

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