Firing the sales team = less income = some higher up will see declining profits = it will be killed

  • DevopsPalmer@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Well that is unfortunate, Waze is a great community that showed what is possible with crowdsourced information and keeping people from getting as many sepeding tickets

    • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Crowdsourcing proprietary software - it ends the same every time. People should just do OpenStreetMaps instead

    • GlitzyArmrest@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      If you actually care about crowdsourced information, please consider contributing to your local area in OpenStreetMaps. There’s way more to crowdsourcing than just avoiding speeding tickets!

      • MasterBlaster@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Indeed. I update it regularly through OsmAnd. It even has a google traffic overlay. Waze users can slide over to Magic Earth and start reporting traffic, construction, and speedvtraps over there and automatically start using OpenStreetMaps!

        • Cinner@lemmy.worldB
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          1 year ago

          To clarify, does Magic Earth let people mark cops?

          If so I assume it only works well in larger cities?

          • MasterBlaster@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Yes. The priblem with crowdsourced data, is it requires a crowd. This is why I encourage everyone to hype Magic Earth to people who love waze. I attached a screenshot of the available alerts.

          • MasterBlaster@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Yes. The priblem with crowdsourced data, is it requires a crowd. This is why I encourage everyone to hype Magic Earth to people who love waze.

      • copium@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Seriously ?
        Cop are master at putting trap in the worst area possible, like where it goes from 110 to 90 then 110 again over 200 meters.

  • AwkwardPenguin@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Read the article… It’s transitioning to a different ad team, so cost reduction when only one system for ads is needed. I don’t think this will be cancelled since their community is actively keeping it alive.

    • Moonrise2473@feddit.itOP
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      1 year ago

      But Google traditionally is operating internal teams as competing teams. So Waze has a great chance of being seen as a “competing” product to Google maps. A customer sent to Waze might be seen as a customer lost to Waze. For example Waze added first the integration with Spotify in 2017, never supported Google play music and only after years it supported YouTube music. If they felt that they were under the same company (they were acquired five years earlier), they should have been integrated Google play music first, Spotify second (or both, GPM was killed three years later).

      Regarding the community, i saw a lot of mods doing a lot of unpaid work. And i mean A LOT, they are investing hours of their free time to improve maps for a multi billion corporation. But when I tried to login, i had the impression that it was abandoned since the acquisition. The interface design is very outdated and it’s very hard for a regular user to find this place as it’s not advertised anywhere (i got the link when I sent a correction to the map from the app)

      And corrections appear to be unidirectional. Something that gets fixed or flagged in Google maps doesn’t transfer to Waze, but the opposite happens.

      Again on Android auto, Waze got split screen support 6 months after it was publicly announced and one year after it was available in the public beta channel on the play store. No communication between the two teams in the same company, the android auto team treated the Waze team as they were some independent company

      Seeing Google history, i give 3 years max before they wind down Waze.

    • Moonrise2473@feddit.itOP
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      1 year ago

      I’m very impressed about it. I wonder how they’re making money if they don’t sell traffic data or ads or telemetry. Their server expenses aren’t cheap

      • Brunette6256@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I had the same thought. So I emailed them and asked last year. Below is the reply:

        Hello, We are glad that you like Magic Earth! Magic Earth is free for end users, but we have a paid SDK - you can check generalmagic.com for more info. We have partnerships with companies such as Selectric, Smarter AI, Absolute Cycling etc.

    • TehWorld@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      A lot of the data is shared back and forth, but yeah the tools are much better in Waze.

        • kestrel7@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          And that is why Waze has to go away. It’s giving people info on cops, so that’s becoming politically inconvenient for Google.

          • ward2k@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            But you can also report police speed traps on Google Maps too? (At least in the UK not sure if it differs by country)

    • khelmr@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Same. I’m surprised that they haven’t merged the apps years ago. I thought it was only a matter of time, but Waze continued to exist for many years.

      • techno_analyst@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Waze is quite a different experience than Google Maps when driving, so it’s made sense to keep them as two separate apps.

        Google Maps is “I want to get from point A to point B in a normal way.”

        Waze is “I want the most aggressively quick way; no back street is too small for me.”

        I feel like OP has gone too far with the editorialised headline this time, as the only thing that’s happening at this point is switching Waze over to use the standard Google ad platform rather than their custom system.

  • DeriHunter@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Google: Google remains deeply committed to growing Waze’s unique brand

    Also Google: And how are we going to achieve that? By decreasing the workforce that works on waze

    • Moonrise2473@feddit.itOP
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      1 year ago

      They surprisingly worked almost independently for a decade, i was expecting that it would be killed in 2015

  • HidingCat@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Shouldn’t uneditorilised headlines be a rule around these parts too? Take your hot takes to the comments or the body text.

  • garrettw87@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Waze editor here. Based on the article’s content, this post’s title is a bit of an overreaction. Google would be a fool to kill off a platform with more accurate street maps than its core platform, maintained by a vibrant group of volunteers, at least without creating or migrating those tools over to GMaps.

    • Brkdncr@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Oh sweet summer child. Google could turn off waze with no warning. Are you going to switch to bing maps? If every waze member stopped using any google service as a result, would their bottom line be affected in any meaningful way?

  • MasterBlaster@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Now is the time to start encouraging Waze users to try Magic Earth!

    It also has social reporting features, uses open street maps, and has a real privacy policy.

  • FrankTheHealer@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Oh for fuck sake.

    Fuck Google. I used Waze since it didnt need a Google account and was still reasonably popular in my area.

    If I have to use a Google account for this shit, I dont know what I’d do.