On a related note, am I right in understand that the "Google Experts" [1] do it for free?
These "Google $title Experts" work as uncompensated customer support (a legal requirement that they treat as such, if the quality is any indicator) on various social media outlets like Reddit and Twitter. They don't just provide free labor, they also go to bat for Google's reputation, acting as marketing and PR liaisons to prevent backlash from users who've been failed by their official support processes.
One 'expert' I spoke with justified working for free by the "connections and access" they received. When I asked if Google would be flying them out to the events they have access to to meet with the people they have connections with, they said they were told they would have to cover their own travel and lodging. I suppose if Google doesn't pay them, they never have to worry about any Experts connecting and starting a union.
We're talking about a multi trillion dollar company. Absolutely ridiculous.
This is so true. When I try to find a fix for some broken behavior in a major Google app the most common place I end up is a support forum with zero solution, no comment from any Google employee, and a volunteer support person saying how the defect isn't actually a problem but that you should submit feedback within the app.
These volunteers can't be helping at this point. Google's disdain for users is pretty widely recognized by now and seeing a whole bunch of frustrated users being blown off yet again doesn't help.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_Community_Leader_Program
First tier support is hosted primarily in India where they don't know who or how many are doing the work, and it's nearly impossible to get escalated as a customer to the correct support tier outside of their script. It's frustrating and mostly useless, but they can handle volume changes quickly at sub-human costs.
I imagine there are Google executives in a room somewhere laughing their full heads off every time they think about how there are people who do free work for Google who think they are making the world a better place or something.
So when you go to a store that Google Maps says is open, and find it's closed, you refuse to correct the hours and go "MUHAHAHAHA...I refuse to help Google, take that, corporate scum!"
The thing is that business owners do update the info on Google Maps, and have an incentive to do so, but only volunteers update OSM.
OSM shines where businesses don't care but volunteers do: trails in a park, non-commercial POIs, etc.
I guess it's nice that ordinary people try to do these updates for Big G and Apple. But they're often wrong, or they presume a one-day change is a permanent change, or that it applies to every location on the planet.
Back when it was new and interesting, TripAdvisor used to send people hats if they reviewed a new or unusual hotel.
I wish I hadn't lost my hat before I had a chance to wear it while checking into a hotel.