I still use gmail and drive for work but otherwise I’m never logged into anything google at home. Today when I tried to expand on a restaurant’s hours it wouldn’t let me see them without logging in, although it still worked in incognito. This restaurant screenshot is just a random other example I tried, but for the one I was actually checking google had the correct hours while the official website hasn’t been updated in awhile and had the old ones (website said they’re still open for dinner but they’ve only been doing lunch for a year or so now)
There’s OpenStreetMap. I’m not saying that it’s as suitable as Google Maps for you, but it’s a possible option.
https://www.openstreetmap.org/
The’re not a commercial service, and the database backing it is freely distributable, so it won’t get cut off.
It doesn’t have Google Street View, though, and attempts at reimplementing such a thing have been pretty weak, so if you need that functionality, won’t help.
I have tried open street maps it didn’t even have my address correct. It was absolute trash. There are very few things that actually work and work well when you need them to work. I would never trust that service to work well. It relies far too much on individuals to fix everything wrong with it. I had to submit my correct address to it which took several weeks to correct. And that’s just one address that I looked at that’s a standard address no big deal shows correct on every other map out there but if I were trying to rely on that for life-saving services hell no.
I agree with all your points. Just wanted to add that for bicycling, the OsmAnd app is superior to Google Maps, simply because the Google Map app doesn’t honor modified routes.
On the desktop, Google Maps lets you map bicycle directions, but they’re dangerously bad. Dangerous routes when it could have preferred a bike route or greenway, not understanding that sometimes you have to become a pedestrian for a few feet and use a crosswalk, or cross a patch of dirt, etc. And you have to force it into a safer route by adding the “drag to change route” dots and dragging them to the roads it should have used. However, if you share that route URL with the Google Maps app, it ignores all the changes and reverts to the bad route.
So instead I have to put that URL into GPS Visualizer and convert it to a GPX which OsmAnd honors. There are other GPX conversion websites too, but I’ve noticed subtle changes to my route when I was using those other sites.
All this could be avoided if the Google Maps app would just honor the desktop URLs, but it’s been this way for years so I doubt it will ever happen.
EDIT: fixed the link
The service is as good as the community who updates it. The more people using, the better it becomes. Be the change you want to see.
I don’t want to be the change to make it happen. I don’t want to be the beta tester of a product that’s supposed to be getting me around. What I want is I want a product that works I want something that functions when I need it to. When I go to an area that I am unfamiliar with and I’m using maps to try to find a house location a business whatever it is I don’t want to have to go in and beta test somebody else’s shit. That’s how Matt’s work.
Then stop whining about a community project and fucking buy a physical map.
Or, I just use Google maps. The point of my bitching is you can’t use open street maps, and expect it to actually be usable. So telling someone to use it, for 911 purposes it’s useless. Read the fucking thread jackass.
An ironic twist to the tragedy of the commons.
Separately, you should read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State and look at the context of why things are unfamiliar in the first place.
Well we also have to take solar flares and GPS satellites into account. Can only do so much on a terrestrial level.
Biggest issue I had, was my own address wasn’t accurate. Like didn’t exist. The one they showed at my house, was inaccurate. So if I can’t even map my own house, then if I go into a place I’m not familiar with…