Hacker News Reader

Comment by CamelCaseName | Hacker News Reader

I share my realtime Google Maps location with 30 people, friends, family, people from the internet.

They can see where I am, down to my address, at any given time.

Why not?

The very real upside is that they casually see me while looking at Google Maps and strike up a conversation or invite me somewhere, something that's happened many times.

The article talks about private and public life... but people will go to all the effort to post the very same things their location reveals on social media. Might as well make it real time.

If you're sharing location data with people who would use it to harass you, that seems like a selection issue, not a systemic issue.

Location data is hardly private. Everyone should share theirs with as many interesting people as possible. If only I had done so back in school.

View on HN

>Why not?

I'd be fine sharing my location with my immediate family, but they refuse it. When they wonder how close I am to being home, it isn't supposed to be such a serious thing as to have my precise GPS location. It's a reason to think about me or message me.

I've come to think that it's one of the many "problems" that many people don't actually want to solve, and being so heavily connected is taking away some of the "magic" of social behavior and replacing it with efficiency.

As a random example, waiting for a date to show up is probably more exciting than having a precise read of their location. Or, when my parents were visiting, they'd often say they were just thinking about how I'd be getting home soon.

The nice thing is that everyone has the ability to decide if they want to share their location or not. But even on social media, I only reveal my current location when I'm somewhere that I'd be open to running into people. Otherwise I intentionally wait till I'm somewhere else before posting about where I was.

> As a random example, waiting for a date to show up is probably more exciting than having a precise read of their location.

You could just copy what delivery companies do: "Only 5 stops before you"

"Your date's previous date is running long. Please wait awkwardly at the restaurant at the table by yourself while everyone rolls the dice on whether you got stood up or not."

Sounds great!

> They can see where I am, down to my address, at any given time. Why not?

To avoid some awkward conversations many people would rather avoid, I guess?

"You were nearby? Why didn't you attend blah/come say hi/etc.?"

"You're here? Didn't you say you're going to be out of town?"

"What were you out doing at {time/place}?"

etc.

A ton of people have mine and no one has ever given anyone shit about it.

It's mostly just 'yooooo I didn't realize you were near X' or 'how was Y? I saw it when checking where my buddy was'

Dunno maybe someone's has been messing with me all these years and I'm oblivious

Sounds incredibly creepy.

I do the same thing, just smaller group. Answering the questions you’re asking just requires candor: I need some me time. I wasn’t feeling up to it. Will catch you next time.

> just requires candor: I need some me time. I wasn’t feeling up to it. Will catch you next time.

Great! You tell them honestly, what could possibly go wrong. I'm sure nobody's feelings would be hurt when you tell them you weren't feeling like meeting them.

Now next time you drop by and still don't manage to catch them for whatever reason. Now your prior "candor" becomes a lie -- one that never needed to arise in the first place.

Maybe you enjoy getting yourself into these kinds of situations, but hopefully you can understand why others might not.

they might just have reasonable friends. I personally stopped putting up with people who annoy me in 2018 and I'm much better off for it.

Most likely the GP who shares location with 30 people just doesn't get into these kinds of situations. Y'know, since they'd have stopped if they did.

The obvious one being your wife noticing you're at your mistress' house when you told her you were over at your girlfriend's, but outside of that, the problem the people that are positive about sharing their location is that it's also being abused by the abusive. That's a social problem, and not something technology can solve. I share my location with people I love and trust and will understand that I was busy and had an itinerary I needed to stick to and couldn't see them even though I was right next door, and if they ask we'll have a conversation about it that isn't awkward. Good for me but the problem isn't that I have good people in my life that I share this with, but that other people have bad people in their lives that they're forced to share it with, for whatever reason. I don't have an answer for that.

If those risks outweigh the benefit of having an impromptu lunch with them, or the sonder comfort of seeing them enjoy a Friday night at home, then don't share your location with that person.

If you feel that way about everyone, then you are a very different person to me (and probably OP).

> If those risks outweigh the benefit of having an impromptu lunch with them, or the sonder comfort of seeing them enjoy a Friday night at home, then don't share your location with that person. If you feel that way about everyone, then you are a very different person to me (and probably OP).

If you feel these are the only two possibilities, we're definitely very different people.

Maybe if you don’t lie to people you wouldn’t have that issue?

These seems to be about guilting and pressuring rather then lying. That person does not have issue because they lie, they have issue because others feel entitled to pressure them.

> Maybe if you don’t lie to people you wouldn’t have that issue?

The heck? Is it that hard for you to imagine these occurring without lying? You have X planned, and now your plans change to Y. Now you owe everyone whose invitation you'd declined an explanation, or they wonder if you're a liar. Or I guess if they're like you, they already assumed you're a liar.

But why is potentially explaining a change of plans such an issue?

Because having to keep track of who might have noticed you on the map—then explaining your choices to them—is draining and makes you feel like you can’t make a basic personal choice without justifying it.

Because sometimes people can be unreasonable. (Bad day, drunk, generally difficult personality, etc.) The more people you add to your circle, the more you are likely to run into this.

Because it’s none of their business. You are not owed my time just because I’m nearby. That’s not a healthy boundary to have. Location sharing encourages “boundary creep” that forces you to more frequently justify and reinforce your personal boundaries, adding friction to the relationship.

Then just don't? If it's none of their business then it's none of their business, if they're unreasonable then that's their problem, if you don't want to justify it then just don't?

Or just don’t share your location and sidestep the whole problem? It’s not like you won’t be invited to a party because you don’t share your location 24/7. (If this is somehow actually the case then you need new friends.)

Well that's just going in circles. The question was "Why would you share?" and someone gave their list of perceived benefits. These were written off on the basis of creating a responsibility of explaining yourself to everyone. I was only responding to that assertion. But you're right, we could just not have this conversation at all...

> The question was "Why would you share?" and someone gave their list of perceived benefits. These were written off on the basis of creating a responsibility of explaining yourself to everyone.

You seem to have missed a crucial step in the conversation.

What happened is that the person listing said benefits explicitly asked "Why not?" and so received a response answering their question.

Nope, I was responding to one of the Why Not? rationales. What I said just now was in response to a complete sidestep of the issue, which is something else and honestly quite frustrating.

You got direct answers to your question, nobody is going circles or avoiding your question. If anything your responses seem confused.

E.g. "it's draining" is... self-explanatory? I'm not sure what else you want to hear on this. Keep throwing draining problems in front of people and they will get tired of it and try to avoid the situation entirely. And if somehow it's not draining for you, surely you can understand your stamina doesn't generalize to that of the entire human population.

"If they're unreasonable then that's their problem" is just a silly strawman. If unreasonable people have a problem with you that can and often will quite easily become your problem...

"If you don't want to justify it then just don't" is basically the same as above.

Etc.

I'm not asking to hear anything more and I'm quite astonished that you feel the need to continue this. I read a point, and I made my counter-point and the response was "well you could just not bother." Why are we still bothering to talk about any of it?

All of this "surely you can see" that you're saying is presumptuous and a strawman. Of course I understand not everyone feels the same as me, should I just shut up because my experience isn't universally transferable? Why aren't you telling the people who find it draining that not everyone finds it draining?

Yeah but can't you just post an announce "i'll be in X for Y days" on SNS like the old way ? It's way nicer and a much more explicit invitation for hangout than an icon on on map ;)

I suspect that they are trying to recreate the experience of bumping into someone they know. Since the destruction of third-spaces, it is increasingly unlikely that you'll serendipitously interact with someone in an unplanned, but welcome, social environment. Leaving your location on for friends and family in this way signals something close to "If you see me, say hi". Whereas announcing "I will be at X for Y time" is a bit more heavy handed. And just knowing that isn't sufficient to actually act on the information, you still have to reach out and plan something unless you are an granular as the actual building you are in, which feels weird. It feels a little intrusive to constantly be announcing my location. Like "Hey! Hey! obk0943t! I'm gonna be in NYC just so you know!" If I just left my location on, then /if/ you care, you can find out. But if you don't, you are not interrupted with the information. Finally, posting leaves a record, whereas location sharing is always "right now". Sure, someone can use that to construct a timeline, but that takes effort on their part (and possibly malice).

Modern lives may or may not be more spontaneous (doubtful), but not everyone has the same capacity for planning as you do. Sometimes I'll randomly find myself 30 miles from home on an spontaneous side mission, and would love to drop in on friends I don't usually see, if they're around.

I don't think I even have 30 different people in my contacts list who I've talked to more than once in the past month, let alone that many living close enough to me to casually invite me somewhere because I'm nearby.

It will become a systemic issue when sharing is the norm and you somehow don't.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com