15 ms·

Thought the same, there are not many use cases which will be still profitable after this price increase.

ajross 8y ago
Counterpoint: if these startups need a giant subsidized mapping product for free or else they aren't profitable, they weren't ever profitable. I mean, there's a real cry-me-a-river aspect here. No one has a Google-granted fundamental right to mapping. It's a free product Google released to drive traffic to their own offerings, and which they happen to make available for free for a lot of purposes. As it turns out, yeah, there's a lot of value we as a society can derive from low cost pervasive mapping. So let's find a way to share the cost and not just whine about Google, no?
- draw_down 8y ago
  Who is talking about startups, though?
- cannonedhamster 8y ago
  The article said nothing about making it free, it said that the costs, which were previously in line with competitors, increased by very, very large amounts without any perceived increase in value. Then they looked at options which were commercial offerings which cost dramatically less. They are paying for the service, it's not subsidized or free. It's like you didn't read any of the article.
  - alextheparrot 8y ago
    They were in the free tier, so they were not paying. They even have a nice graph that shows it.
  - FireBeyond 8y ago
    Sounds like a great opportunity for their competitors, then!
- laGrenouille 8y ago
  The problem isn’t that Google wants to charge for a service. The issue is that they offered it for years for free or below cost effectively price gouging any competition. Now, with no alternatives they jack up the price. Classic monopolistic and anticompetitive behaviour.
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    Essentially the Google Reader effect, right? Where killing their offering basically killed the entire medium.
    - asfasgasg 8y ago
      You've got the causality reversed here. The medium was dying, so the Reader product was killed.
      - parrellel 8y ago
        You mean Google+ needed promotion so the Reader product was killed.
        emodendroket 8y ago
        In the first place they'd rather you used something other than RSS so they can inject promoted content into it.
        rlac16 8y ago
        Nothing stops promoted content being injected by the feed reader. Feedly does it on their free plans.
        asfasgasg 8y ago
        Google+ only existed in the first place because of the thing that was killing the medium and its one hundred and forty character-limited cousin.
- beauzero 8y ago
  I have been doing a lot of Local Guide work, photos, verifying, etc. in a rural area. Will be switching to OSM. This was the last straw.
  - Berunto 8y ago
    I'm doing the same. Been a local guide aswell. And if you are not based in the US, you never got ANY benefit from Google for that effort. I did it for the society. And now Google is earning 10x more with it...
- ballenf 8y ago
  One could say the same about Google's cry-me-a-river response to the EU's decision on Android: "If Google needs to engage in anticompetitive behavior to keep Android profitable/viable, then they weren't ever profitable."
- hueving 8y ago
  >Counterpoint: if these startups need a giant subsidized mapping product for free or else they aren't profitable, they weren't ever profitable. If startups need a giant subsidized operating system for free or else they weren't profitable, they weren't ever profitable. Do you see how ridiculous that argument is? >As it turns out, yeah, there's a lot of value we as a society can derive from low cost pervasive mapping. So let's find a way to share the cost and not just whine about Google, no? Yeah, Google has vacuumed up incredible amounts of mapping data from users and has now jacked up the prices with the lead this gave them. OSM (or something similar) is the way to share the cost. Google just abused their goodwill and used their other power positions to discourage open source. Whining about Google while moving elsewhere is entirely appropriate.
  - jayd16 8y ago
    >Do you see how ridiculous that argument is? What? Your counter-counterpoint doesn't make sense at. Lots of startups can afford the per seat cost of OSX or Windows. If your business can't recoup the cost of an os per employee then yeah...maybe it's not a worthwhile venture.
    - paganel 8y ago
      > Lots of startups can afford the per seat cost of OSX or Windows. On the desktop side of things that only happens because of Linux, otherwise (if guys like Ballmer would have had their way at the end of the '90s - early 2000s) those startups would now be paying hundreds of dollars per Windows license per each machine (and maybe more depending on the number of cores? the sky would have been the limit, the same as Oracle did in their field). And not to mention the server side of things, I'm pretty sure the costs for server OS licenses would have been prohibitive for the vast majority of startups without the alternative free OS solutions.
      - lagadu 8y ago
        We pay a lot more than that for MSDN licenses (which includes the OS if it's only used for development).
- _Codemonkeyism 8y ago
  If a startup needs a giant system of subsidized roads for free or else they aren't profitable, they weren't ever profitable. You see where this argument leads to?
  - colordrops 8y ago
    No, the roads are subsidized by those who pay for them. There is a right to use them for business purposes, unlike private map services.
    - _Codemonkeyism 8y ago
      In most countries startups don't pay for taxes and therefore are not contributing to roads.
  - adrianN 8y ago
    Is Google infrastructure now? Should we fund Google with tax money? Nationalize it?
    - bryanrasmussen 8y ago
      No, although of course there is the point that a lot of Google's mapping data was subsidized with tax money by virtue of using the various geodata sources the U.S makes available for free to build on.
      - beagle3 8y ago
        Anyone can use those, so why are people complaining? Google does a whole lot more, and can charge whatever they want for it. OSM provides usable solutions the vast majority of users; i’ve Moved to OSM a couple of years ago in everything for privacy reasons and except for the occasional Waze route or verifications, get nothing from google that I can’t get from OSM.
- da_chicken 8y ago
  > Counterpoint: if these startups need a giant subsidized mapping product for free or else they aren't profitable, they weren't ever profitable. I mean, kind of, but on the other hand, think about all the companies whose costs are subsidized by having public roads.
  - Ultimatt 8y ago
    Yup and in the UK because freight is all on tax payer paid roads private rail has become incredibly expensive for normal people travelling.
- Nuzzerino 8y ago
  Here we go again with the "No subscription fees means you have the right to like what we give you" argument. Haven't we beaten the "nothing is actually free" horse into the ground by now? There is the matter of the vast amounts of data Google collects from people, and the other intangible costs you incur from the lack of alternative products due to the high barrier to entry (hard to compete with 'free'), and of course the risks that come with the lack of incentive on the vendor's part to maintain good will with the end user (this thread is case in point).
  - naturalgradient 8y ago
    I completely disagree. You can find Google's pricing tactic aggressive, but it made me think about the entitlement there. They complain that Maps at new prices would be more than the cost of their infrastructure, when actually their entire startup revolves around this data, and 5k to be able to use an amazing piece of high tech software that is ahead of the competition is..peanuts. No matter what other business interests and strategies Google follows, there is no right to using such valuable tech for less than the monthly salary of an engineer. I find this incredible entitled.
- arsenico 8y ago
  It is not about free. It is about being more expensive than before. We live in the economy, where small companies operate at such a thin margin (even if they're profitable), that such an increase in cost often kills any hope for profitability, especially with the economies of scale. Would you prefer to fire one developer from the team, or stop using Google Maps? I am not saying that mapping should be free, but such price bumps should be communicated better to allow paying customers prepare for changes and alternative scenarios. And again, just another reminder, that whenever choosing a provider for anything related to your core business - think of an exit plan!
- RugnirViking 8y ago
  Counterpoint: if these startups need a giant subsidized transport infrastructure/global telecomunications network/permissive government/low-cost computer hardware/solid legal system or else they aren't profitable, they weren't ever profitable.

Counterpoint: if these startups need a giant subsidized mapping product for free or else they aren't profitable, they weren't ever profitable. I mean, there's a real cry-me-a-river aspect here. No one has a Google-granted fundamental right to mapping. It's a free product Google released to drive traffic to their own offerings, and which they happen to make available for free for a lot of purposes. As it turns out, yeah, there's a lot of value we as a society can derive from low cost pervasive mapping. So let's find a way to share the cost and not just whine about Google, no?

draw_down 8y ago
Who is talking about startups, though?
cannonedhamster 8y ago
The article said nothing about making it free, it said that the costs, which were previously in line with competitors, increased by very, very large amounts without any perceived increase in value. Then they looked at options which were commercial offerings which cost dramatically less. They are paying for the service, it's not subsidized or free. It's like you didn't read any of the article.
- alextheparrot 8y ago
  They were in the free tier, so they were not paying. They even have a nice graph that shows it.
- FireBeyond 8y ago
  Sounds like a great opportunity for their competitors, then!
laGrenouille 8y ago
The problem isn’t that Google wants to charge for a service. The issue is that they offered it for years for free or below cost effectively price gouging any competition. Now, with no alternatives they jack up the price. Classic monopolistic and anticompetitive behaviour.
- emodendroket 8y ago
  Essentially the Google Reader effect, right? Where killing their offering basically killed the entire medium.
  - asfasgasg 8y ago
    You've got the causality reversed here. The medium was dying, so the Reader product was killed.
    - parrellel 8y ago
      You mean Google+ needed promotion so the Reader product was killed.
      - emodendroket 8y ago
        In the first place they'd rather you used something other than RSS so they can inject promoted content into it.
        rlac16 8y ago
        Nothing stops promoted content being injected by the feed reader. Feedly does it on their free plans.
      - asfasgasg 8y ago
        Google+ only existed in the first place because of the thing that was killing the medium and its one hundred and forty character-limited cousin.
beauzero 8y ago
I have been doing a lot of Local Guide work, photos, verifying, etc. in a rural area. Will be switching to OSM. This was the last straw.
- Berunto 8y ago
  I'm doing the same. Been a local guide aswell. And if you are not based in the US, you never got ANY benefit from Google for that effort. I did it for the society. And now Google is earning 10x more with it...
ballenf 8y ago
One could say the same about Google's cry-me-a-river response to the EU's decision on Android: "If Google needs to engage in anticompetitive behavior to keep Android profitable/viable, then they weren't ever profitable."
hueving 8y ago
>Counterpoint: if these startups need a giant subsidized mapping product for free or else they aren't profitable, they weren't ever profitable. If startups need a giant subsidized operating system for free or else they weren't profitable, they weren't ever profitable. Do you see how ridiculous that argument is? >As it turns out, yeah, there's a lot of value we as a society can derive from low cost pervasive mapping. So let's find a way to share the cost and not just whine about Google, no? Yeah, Google has vacuumed up incredible amounts of mapping data from users and has now jacked up the prices with the lead this gave them. OSM (or something similar) is the way to share the cost. Google just abused their goodwill and used their other power positions to discourage open source. Whining about Google while moving elsewhere is entirely appropriate.
- jayd16 8y ago
  >Do you see how ridiculous that argument is? What? Your counter-counterpoint doesn't make sense at. Lots of startups can afford the per seat cost of OSX or Windows. If your business can't recoup the cost of an os per employee then yeah...maybe it's not a worthwhile venture.
  - paganel 8y ago
    > Lots of startups can afford the per seat cost of OSX or Windows. On the desktop side of things that only happens because of Linux, otherwise (if guys like Ballmer would have had their way at the end of the '90s - early 2000s) those startups would now be paying hundreds of dollars per Windows license per each machine (and maybe more depending on the number of cores? the sky would have been the limit, the same as Oracle did in their field). And not to mention the server side of things, I'm pretty sure the costs for server OS licenses would have been prohibitive for the vast majority of startups without the alternative free OS solutions.
    - lagadu 8y ago
      We pay a lot more than that for MSDN licenses (which includes the OS if it's only used for development).
_Codemonkeyism 8y ago
If a startup needs a giant system of subsidized roads for free or else they aren't profitable, they weren't ever profitable. You see where this argument leads to?
- colordrops 8y ago
  No, the roads are subsidized by those who pay for them. There is a right to use them for business purposes, unlike private map services.
  - _Codemonkeyism 8y ago
    In most countries startups don't pay for taxes and therefore are not contributing to roads.
- adrianN 8y ago
  Is Google infrastructure now? Should we fund Google with tax money? Nationalize it?
  - bryanrasmussen 8y ago
    No, although of course there is the point that a lot of Google's mapping data was subsidized with tax money by virtue of using the various geodata sources the U.S makes available for free to build on.
    - beagle3 8y ago
      Anyone can use those, so why are people complaining? Google does a whole lot more, and can charge whatever they want for it. OSM provides usable solutions the vast majority of users; i’ve Moved to OSM a couple of years ago in everything for privacy reasons and except for the occasional Waze route or verifications, get nothing from google that I can’t get from OSM.
da_chicken 8y ago
> Counterpoint: if these startups need a giant subsidized mapping product for free or else they aren't profitable, they weren't ever profitable. I mean, kind of, but on the other hand, think about all the companies whose costs are subsidized by having public roads.
- Ultimatt 8y ago
  Yup and in the UK because freight is all on tax payer paid roads private rail has become incredibly expensive for normal people travelling.
Nuzzerino 8y ago
Here we go again with the "No subscription fees means you have the right to like what we give you" argument. Haven't we beaten the "nothing is actually free" horse into the ground by now? There is the matter of the vast amounts of data Google collects from people, and the other intangible costs you incur from the lack of alternative products due to the high barrier to entry (hard to compete with 'free'), and of course the risks that come with the lack of incentive on the vendor's part to maintain good will with the end user (this thread is case in point).
- naturalgradient 8y ago
  I completely disagree. You can find Google's pricing tactic aggressive, but it made me think about the entitlement there. They complain that Maps at new prices would be more than the cost of their infrastructure, when actually their entire startup revolves around this data, and 5k to be able to use an amazing piece of high tech software that is ahead of the competition is..peanuts. No matter what other business interests and strategies Google follows, there is no right to using such valuable tech for less than the monthly salary of an engineer. I find this incredible entitled.
arsenico 8y ago
It is not about free. It is about being more expensive than before. We live in the economy, where small companies operate at such a thin margin (even if they're profitable), that such an increase in cost often kills any hope for profitability, especially with the economies of scale. Would you prefer to fire one developer from the team, or stop using Google Maps? I am not saying that mapping should be free, but such price bumps should be communicated better to allow paying customers prepare for changes and alternative scenarios. And again, just another reminder, that whenever choosing a provider for anything related to your core business - think of an exit plan!
RugnirViking 8y ago
Counterpoint: if these startups need a giant subsidized transport infrastructure/global telecomunications network/permissive government/low-cost computer hardware/solid legal system or else they aren't profitable, they weren't ever profitable.