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Disclaimer: I work at Google but not on Maps and am speaking for myself, not my employer. I am normally very sympathetic to HN complaints about Google customer

by habosa 6y ago

Disclaimer: I work at Google but not on Maps and am speaking for myself, not my employer. I am normally very sympathetic to HN complaints about Google customer service. They're normally about Cloud or GSuite, this one is a bit different. Does anyone here think it would actually be possible to have a free (or even cheap) comprehensive maps service that also has customer support? How many dedicated support people would you need to make fair human decisions about every place, road, and business in the entire world? Maps are just really really hard, especially as we expect them to be so much more than the simple maps they replaced. It's a database of everything there is to do in the world. And we don't pay a dime.

detaro 6y ago
I don't know, then maybe add paid listing support? (Or don't push your product through search and OS dominance so better quality alternatives have at least a theoretical chance?)
bberenberg 6y ago
How is it free? Google sells advertisements on Maps. This is a business customer that Google tries to convert into a paying advertiser, not a random consumer. Google Maps is also a paid API product.
grumple 6y ago
Doesn't google charge for business use of maps, and charge for advertising within maps? Cost of support should be included in those costs.
- Craighead 6y ago
  No cost for business listing.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
I hope it's not controversial to say that if your ambitions are to be the whole world's middle man on something, you have some responsibilities regarding how to do it. Google doesn't have a "hey, these are scraped and only have like 80% accuracy" disclaimer or anything like that when they direct customers to businesses. I don't know where the line is but Google has some level of basic ethical requirement to not try to be the middleman when their failures (or in google terms >80% accuracy) cost others rather than themselves. It's presented as correct, not as a best guess. I get that it's impossible to be 100% correct at this scale, but then just don't present it as authoritative. Or let people correct mistakes that are harming them. Or something besides just driving traffic to their own product and saying there's nothing they could do.
- izacus 6y ago
  Is there ANY company that will do that? Can you sue the yellow pages if they're wrong? Or a wrong map? Or even your own projects - are you willing to put your money and perhaps even criminal record on the line if your company sells data that's not accurate for a percentage of customers?
  - callmeal 6y ago
    >Can you sue the yellow pages if they're wrong? Or a wrong map? Yup. You can also win. https://www.pmmag.com/articles/84301-oops-the-yellow-pages-blew-my-ad https://www.pmmag.com/articles/84301-oops-the-yellow-pages-b... >>A Pennsylvania caterer had an outdated phone number placed in his ad. The phone number, used briefly in the past, had been assigned to someone else. The result: The caterer lost a ton of money and eventually filed for bankruptcy. He sued the phone company for negligently listing the wrong number. The jury awarded him $200,000.
  - mthoms 6y ago
    I don't get this comment. The parent said nothing about suing anybody.... let alone committing crimes(!?). They spoke of ethics. If Google posts information to the web[0], and that information can harm my business, don't you think the ethical thing to do would be to provide some sort of avenue for correcting it? This isn't some scrappy startup. It's one of the worlds biggest and richest companies. [0] I'm not talking about search results here, where someone else posts false information. That's a whole other ball-o-wax.
Retric 6y ago
If their profit from maps is say 1$/year per user and 99.5% of users don’t need support in a given year that’s 200$/year per user who needs support which is plenty. I am not saying that’s their exact situation, but how many people need to change anything on a map? Worse, support would actually be directly improving their product for normal users. Google has crap support because their a monopoly not because they can’t afford it.
emsy 6y ago
Google has a shitload of money and a wrong entry in their product can make or break a small business existence. I hope they and others will someday be regulated.

by habosa 6y ago

detaro 6y ago

I don't know, then maybe add paid listing support? (Or don't push your product through search and OS dominance so better quality alternatives have at least a theoretical chance?)

bberenberg 6y ago

How is it free? Google sells advertisements on Maps. This is a business customer that Google tries to convert into a paying advertiser, not a random consumer. Google Maps is also a paid API product.

grumple 6y ago

Doesn't google charge for business use of maps, and charge for advertising within maps? Cost of support should be included in those costs.

Craighead 6y ago
No cost for business listing.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago

I hope it's not controversial to say that if your ambitions are to be the whole world's middle man on something, you have some responsibilities regarding how to do it. Google doesn't have a "hey, these are scraped and only have like 80% accuracy" disclaimer or anything like that when they direct customers to businesses. I don't know where the line is but Google has some level of basic ethical requirement to not try to be the middleman when their failures (or in google terms >80% accuracy) cost others rather than themselves. It's presented as correct, not as a best guess. I get that it's impossible to be 100% correct at this scale, but then just don't present it as authoritative. Or let people correct mistakes that are harming them. Or something besides just driving traffic to their own product and saying there's nothing they could do.

izacus 6y ago
Is there ANY company that will do that? Can you sue the yellow pages if they're wrong? Or a wrong map? Or even your own projects - are you willing to put your money and perhaps even criminal record on the line if your company sells data that's not accurate for a percentage of customers?
- callmeal 6y ago
  >Can you sue the yellow pages if they're wrong? Or a wrong map? Yup. You can also win. https://www.pmmag.com/articles/84301-oops-the-yellow-pages-blew-my-ad https://www.pmmag.com/articles/84301-oops-the-yellow-pages-b... >>A Pennsylvania caterer had an outdated phone number placed in his ad. The phone number, used briefly in the past, had been assigned to someone else. The result: The caterer lost a ton of money and eventually filed for bankruptcy. He sued the phone company for negligently listing the wrong number. The jury awarded him $200,000.
- mthoms 6y ago
  I don't get this comment. The parent said nothing about suing anybody.... let alone committing crimes(!?). They spoke of ethics. If Google posts information to the web[0], and that information can harm my business, don't you think the ethical thing to do would be to provide some sort of avenue for correcting it? This isn't some scrappy startup. It's one of the worlds biggest and richest companies. [0] I'm not talking about search results here, where someone else posts false information. That's a whole other ball-o-wax.

Retric 6y ago

If their profit from maps is say 1$/year per user and 99.5% of users don’t need support in a given year that’s 200$/year per user who needs support which is plenty. I am not saying that’s their exact situation, but how many people need to change anything on a map? Worse, support would actually be directly improving their product for normal users. Google has crap support because their a monopoly not because they can’t afford it.

emsy 6y ago

Google has a shitload of money and a wrong entry in their product can make or break a small business existence. I hope they and others will someday be regulated.