Google Maps tests new pop-up ads that give you an unnecessary detour

Problems with the veracity of those statements aside, at best the it confirms that google cares about being "inclusive", but the same source also specifically says that current routes are "objective", which disproves op's claim that "routes were being chosen to make the app more "inclusive""

You work for Google, though. Why should your word be trusted over the others'?

B: "ESG refers specifically to considering or changing company's environmental (eg. pollution) and social impact (eg. workforce diversity), as well as improving its governance practices"

B: "[thus showing] A is deliberately obfuscating"

!?!?, two sets of !? for two different levels, one is there being precious little air between what I said and what you said. I frankly don't see any at all, is the idea that saying it comes from finance / investing is misleading??

The other is for the personal attack via mindreading.

The biggest barrier to services adding ads isn't anything like enshittification or market lock-in or whatever, it's that ad-delivery is hard and it takes large, mature company with lots of users to both sport the manpower to get it done and enough eyeballs to make the ROI positive. All those little stupidly named ad-supported streaming platforms that are popping up are almost always backed by a larger company's ad network. Tubi is Fox, Xumo is Comcast, Freevee is Amazon.

Google really incentivizes users to fix map data (like business info) and, after doing so, shows you popups like "Your change was seen by 10,000 people!". Really good UX. Yet, I was only doing free work for a mega corp which doesn't feel as satisfying (and I stopped doing so).

Yes, there are companies whose job it is to get opening hours to various sites. Someone like Walmart will write a contract, and send a regular spreadsheet. The company then processes the spreadsheet, and pushes data out to Google, Facebook, Apple, and so on.

I know this because I was the lead developer at one of those companies for a while. Everyone except OSM is happy to accept an address, maybe a suite number, and then information about phone numbers, opening hours, holiday hours, and so on. OSM insists on detailed geolocation data. If you don't have it, then they won't take your data. Period.

You have the name and address of the mall, and a suite number? Facebook will just report that. Google will take your data and separately figure out how to map out where it is in the mall if it is important. OSM refuses to take the data.

You have data from Walmart with every Walmart address, and every department's phone number, opening hours, holiday hours, and so on? Apple, Yelp, and so on will love you for it. OSM tells you that they need the store layout.

We asked OSM about it. Their answer? I kid you not. "Send someone to the store and map it out then." They really have no clue about how much sending someone to the store costs, and how little these intermediary companies get paid to provide the data. What they demand. Will. Not. Happen.

What OSM should do is provide a way to accept that data in a feed, then let any volunteer tie the feed to the geomapped location. That way between a local volunteer and the companies that supply everyone else, they'd get the standard data that everyone else has.

They don't. After looking at the economics, we had to go hat in hand to Walmart and apologize. "We know that you wanted to be on OSM, but this is what it will take to do it. We can't do that, and we're going to have to take the penalty in the contract."

Yeah, you heard that right. Walmart wanted to cooperate with OSM. But because OSM put roadblocks in place for us, it didn't happen. Not due to lack of popularity to crowdsource information. But because OSM developers have their heads firmly up their asses when it comes to figuring out how to deal with businesses who actively want to deal with them.