11 ms·

OSM needn't compete with Google Maps (as a consumer application) directly; it doesn't, really. Lots of apps based on OSM data do need to compete, and that is v

OSM needn't compete with Google Maps (as a consumer application) directly; it doesn't, really. Lots of apps based on OSM data do need to compete, and that is very difficult to do on a global-scale. That's why most successful OSM-based consumer applications serve a few niches incredibly well. This is not counting the dozens of companies offering OSM-based base maps for use in other, mostly non-map-related uses (such as a store locator or data visualization tool). OSM has the advantage of time, no need to make money, and a vibrant community around it. Google has to make money directly or indirectly via Google Maps to justify continued investment; OSM simply has to exist, and the longer it exists, the better the data will become. As the ecosystem around OSM improves (and continues building positive feedback loops), I strongly suspect we will see a successful consumer-targeted app using OSM data, and it will be much better than the many (good) apps right now, simply because another 5-10 years of accumulated data improvements outstrip the competition's willingness to continue investing. Caveat: I cofounded an OSM base map provider. I'm biased. :-)

robertlagrant 6y ago
It's likely it will never compete. Either its data will never get better than Google's, or it will. If it does, Google might switch the mapping source for Google Maps over to OSM, and make loads of money off it that way. A bit like MS Edge on top of Chromium.
- lukeqsee 6y ago
  > Either its data will never get better than Google's, or it will. If it does, Google might switch the mapping source for Google Maps over to OSM, and make loads of money off it that way. A bit like MS Edge on top of Chromium. Sure, that's reasonable, too. I think OSM (the project & database) wins in that situation, even if its derivations don't compete. Again, I don't really see OSM directly competing with Google Maps (the app).
- ghaff 6y ago
  In some ways, I'd argue it is better today. I find using an OSM-based app is far more likely to show trails than Google Maps is. (Probably because Google 1.) Doesn't really care and 2.) Official data for trails is pretty fragmentary.)
  - lukeqsee 6y ago
    Shoutout to MapOut on iOS! An excellent outdoor map implementation (including fully offline), and I use it all the time.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      I will take a look! I'm still using maps.me. ADDED: Very nicely done. Just bought it.
    - spratzt 6y ago
      Why does Mapout need to use your location even when it isn't open?
      - riejo 6y ago
        it can record your hikes and rides
  - m4rtink 6y ago
    Exactly this - Google maps seem to really have all the drivable roads in all areas I've been in but hardly have anything at all that is pedestrian only as far as I can tell. As an example in 2019, we climbed on Mount Shiroyama above Kagoshima and looking at Google Maps the only way down to the city was the one we came from or some car only tunnels.On the other hand OSM listed a path with lots of stairs the locals apparently use to get up and down the mountain quickly. If we used only Google Maps we would have to backtrack quite a bit over parts of the city we already went to but instead we arrived back in the city quickly just in time to get a tasty evening ramen. :)
- megous 6y ago
  You seem to operate under assumption that Google maps have great data or UI. They don't have either. Google maps may or may not be good for road travel, I don't know. I don't drive. They certainly seem to suck for public transport planning because of silently added walking times that you can't turn off, and overcomplicated 3D-chess like UI, that's hard to navigate and automatically jumps around the map for no really discernible reason. On a recent holiday, I had to constantly switch between gmaps and one other app with better actual mapping data/display (just because one has better public transport data, and the other is better at actually being a map - having things like a scale!, or contour lines). A lot of walking/cycling tracks were just not there in gmaps at all, nevermind the washed out display style of the map tiles and lack of clearly visually defined features you typically orient yourself by when walking, like houses, or other important things you need when planning a walk, like contour lines. Or let alone a scale for quick orientation on how far something is at the current zoom level. All they really have going for them at this point for me is public transport data (not the UI though). A case in point: Google "maps": https://megous.com/dl/tmp/46f0e2aff9573bba.png https://megous.com/dl/tmp/46f0e2aff9573bba.png Actual maps: https://megous.com/dl/tmp/003b6d5bc0f15199.png https://megous.com/dl/tmp/003b6d5bc0f15199.png (with forests where forests really are, lol)
otabdeveloper4 6y ago
Maps.me is OSM under the hood, and it's very popular and far ahead of the Google offering on features and completeness.
- blinding-streak 6y ago
  Citation needed.
- lukeqsee 6y ago
  Agreed. It just has a cluttered and sometimes confusing interface (in my experience) which makes it difficult for me to intuitively use it for routing especially. So I typically use Apple Maps for routing—because it just works and is easy.
- TulliusCicero 6y ago
  Open source software is often comparable or even superior to the proprietary sort in feature set, the kind of thing you can list in bullet points. But it tends to fall down when it comes to user experience. I remember attempting to use OSM on my phone before, and I remember being similarly confused about "which app should I use?" and the ones I tried just being fairly clunky. But I'll give maps.me a try, I can't remember if that was one of them.
  - mixedCase 6y ago
    OsmAnd~ (F-Droid build) has been serving me well for the past 5 years or so and it's gotten a lot of love over time in the UI/UX side.
    - paulryanrogers 6y ago
      Is the tilde part of the name?
      - asddubs 6y ago
        Yes, and it's only on F-Droid. Apparently there's OsmAnd and OsmAnd+, and the one with the tilde is basically the + version with no dependencies on google services. At least according to german wikipedia, which had a convenient little table
foepys 6y ago
Some local public transportation "companies" in Germany (which are called "Anstalt des öffentlichen Rechts" - literal translation "entity of public law" - and are more or less non-profit businesses funded by the city) are using OSM data for their apps and websites and they often edit the bus/tram/train routes and stops if they change them. This is where OSM shines: public entities keeping their data up to date for the benefit of all.
- izacus 6y ago
  Is that really so much different than those same companies pushing their timetable feeds directly to Google for display in GMaps? Where does OSM provide value here and how can it beat GMaps in mindshare and keep suriving?
  - Retric 6y ago
    It’s simply more efficient to update OSM, which makes OSM more up to date. Google maps pulled data from OSM so the government had ~zero incentives to publish to GMaps and every other mapping service directly. It’s simply more work without benefit. PS: If I remember correct Google was on a 2 week delay for OSM data at the time, but that wasn’t considered meaningful. Also, what’s with all the hate here?
    - esarbe 6y ago
      I don't know. Just ignore them, the hate is not relevant.
  - foepys 6y ago
    I can pull, analyze, and use the data I paid for with my taxes instead of having to beg Google or any other company for access to the data.
  - croes 6y ago
    OSM is non-profit, Google is not. Google tracks the users, OSM does not.
liotier 6y ago
Openstreetmap is not an end-user oriented product - but it is perceived through such products. Understanding what might make it more useful to developers benefits from competitive analysis of the consumer products.
bradbeattie 6y ago
> OSM simply has to exist, and the longer it exists, the better the data will become. Probably, but not necessarily. The world changes with time and if OSM contributions languish, it falls out of date with the world and tangibly becomes a worse product. Certainly not inevitable, but a possibility worth noting.
- quietbritishjim 6y ago
  Agreed. In fact, I think the OSM total fraction of errors will exponentially decay towards some non-zero fixed fraction of errors. That's because, on average in the long term, the world probably changes at an approximately fixed rate (relative to total mappable features in the world) and OSM is updated/corrected at a fixed rate (relative to fraction of mappable features that are wrong or missing). Even given the benefit of a lot of time, the OSM can never catch up with a mapping service that updates faster because that other service will have a different equilibrium.
  - Twisell 6y ago
    As of current technology every geographical database lag behind real world and took time to catch up. 20 year ago the average lag was often accounted in years between two survey. It would be nice to determine some random controls points and compare lag on different mapping service. The average lag would maybe maybe drop under a year for some (and it will depend on which feature, road update faster than building if you account for gps data). However I really don't see why OSM would necessarily lag more than Google Map or any commercial database. Because the more OSM usage is widespread (directly or through apps) the more human "field sensors" you get to update the map. Same way that I don't think many commercial encyclopedia can claim that they are more up-to-date than Wikipedia to record new facts.
- Bakary 6y ago
  The places where the data matters might keep a healthy update rhythm
dheera 6y ago
Yeah I was here to say this. OSM doesn't even compete with Google Maps, or rather, Google Maps doesn't even compete with OSM if you want to do any kind of large scale analysis on streets without silly licensing restrictions.
howlgarnish 6y ago
> the longer it exists, the better the data will become. This is unfortunately not a given. The world changes constantly, and things like having up to date coverage of restaurants require an immense amount of essentially ephemeral work to keep up to date.
- ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
  That's why there should be a decoupled architecture. I am not an OSM expert. It may have this already. I am all for OSM, and sincerely wish it great success. What I do have, however, is experience in founding a worldwide, federated infrastructure that supports a fairly specialized (read: "small") demographic, but does that exceedingly well. It has become a worldwide standard, and is being taken to the next level by a team that doesn't really include me, anymore. It has a lot of structural support for federation. The idea is to push specialization away from the core as far and as fast as possible. The core is a relatively simple, tightly-focused, ultra-high-quality database engine, with a powerful semantic API. The services are addons that were written by some really energetic and skilled people that bring far more to the table than Yours Truly. In fact, these addons are what made the system suddenly become a "must have" for everyone. I'm assuming that OSM should have a "core mission" of geographic data, which is really just geolocation stuff. Basically, tagged locations. The tags can be used to relate the locations to external datasets. I would then assume that things like businesses, government services, and other geotagged datasets are attached as adapters to the "core," so they can be managed by others, who are specialized. Google does this (with arguable success) by letting businesses and individual users contribute data. I assume that it uses its own tools to aggregate and clean that data, and probably applies the data in an adapter fashion. This is what they are good at, and at vast scale and performance. Say what you will about them, but they do "big and fast" really well. I have found, through my own experience, that if I want local data to be accurate, it is important to let locals directly supply that data. In my experience, that started with an infrastructure designed for federation, and is realized by writing data harvesters that provide a rich, simple UI. Also, it is important to keep the core "pure." Specializations should be supplied at the adapter level; not by changing the core. For the most part, the central database schema of my system hasn't changed in ten years, but it does a lot more now, than I ever dreamed it would, back then. But that's just me. I don't think I'm anywhere near the level that many people live at. My experience is fairly small and humble. But effective.
betwixthewires 6y ago
I'm with you on the "free projects have forever, proprietary projects have a deadline" line of thinking, I use it often when talking about social networks and microblogging. But one thing to consider is the motivation for predatory or destructive action. The OSM community does not have the motive or the resources for destructive activities towards Google, whereas Google has a motive and resources to sabotage OSM. This sort of thing you see historically with Microsoft and EEE, with Facebook and XMPP, and with lots of other things, including some of Google's behavior. I wrote about this in another comment in this thread (and talked about a solution to the problem), but I believe the existing OSM navigation apps that exist work well, and that the remaining friction point preventing them from competing with google in the consumer navigation market is address lookup. OsmAnd for example is very user friendly and I use it almost exclusively, but looking up addresses is the main difficulty.
- distances 6y ago
  I really wany to love OsmAnd, but I'm not sure I agree on the user friendliness yet. First thing user feels is how slow the rendering is while panning. I can't measure it but I'd guess about 10fps on my phone, and the area revealed by panning is all grey for a good while before it gets drawn. It's fine for a tool, but has no chance to compete for casual end users like this.
  - usrusr 6y ago
    But fast OSM renderers exist. Take a look at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=gr.talent.cruiser https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=gr.talent.crui... for an example. It's perfectly smooth. The application is closed source but the underlying renderer (VTM) is LGPL3. The renderer, https://github.com/mapsforge/vtm https://github.com/mapsforge/vtm, is basically an OpenGL alternative for the mapsforge offline maps format and maintained by the same guy (the original mapsforge renderer is arguably a bit slow, struggling to hide its slowness behind cached tile bitmaps).
    - distances 6y ago
      Damn, that's very smooth! Way better than Google Maps. Do you have any insights why this isn't used by OsmAnd?

robertlagrant 6y ago

It's likely it will never compete. Either its data will never get better than Google's, or it will. If it does, Google might switch the mapping source for Google Maps over to OSM, and make loads of money off it that way. A bit like MS Edge on top of Chromium.

lukeqsee 6y ago
> Either its data will never get better than Google's, or it will. If it does, Google might switch the mapping source for Google Maps over to OSM, and make loads of money off it that way. A bit like MS Edge on top of Chromium. Sure, that's reasonable, too. I think OSM (the project & database) wins in that situation, even if its derivations don't compete. Again, I don't really see OSM directly competing with Google Maps (the app).
ghaff 6y ago
In some ways, I'd argue it is better today. I find using an OSM-based app is far more likely to show trails than Google Maps is. (Probably because Google 1.) Doesn't really care and 2.) Official data for trails is pretty fragmentary.)
- lukeqsee 6y ago
  Shoutout to MapOut on iOS! An excellent outdoor map implementation (including fully offline), and I use it all the time.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    I will take a look! I'm still using maps.me. ADDED: Very nicely done. Just bought it.
  - spratzt 6y ago
    Why does Mapout need to use your location even when it isn't open?
    - riejo 6y ago
      it can record your hikes and rides
- m4rtink 6y ago
  Exactly this - Google maps seem to really have all the drivable roads in all areas I've been in but hardly have anything at all that is pedestrian only as far as I can tell. As an example in 2019, we climbed on Mount Shiroyama above Kagoshima and looking at Google Maps the only way down to the city was the one we came from or some car only tunnels.On the other hand OSM listed a path with lots of stairs the locals apparently use to get up and down the mountain quickly. If we used only Google Maps we would have to backtrack quite a bit over parts of the city we already went to but instead we arrived back in the city quickly just in time to get a tasty evening ramen. :)
megous 6y ago
You seem to operate under assumption that Google maps have great data or UI. They don't have either. Google maps may or may not be good for road travel, I don't know. I don't drive. They certainly seem to suck for public transport planning because of silently added walking times that you can't turn off, and overcomplicated 3D-chess like UI, that's hard to navigate and automatically jumps around the map for no really discernible reason. On a recent holiday, I had to constantly switch between gmaps and one other app with better actual mapping data/display (just because one has better public transport data, and the other is better at actually being a map - having things like a scale!, or contour lines). A lot of walking/cycling tracks were just not there in gmaps at all, nevermind the washed out display style of the map tiles and lack of clearly visually defined features you typically orient yourself by when walking, like houses, or other important things you need when planning a walk, like contour lines. Or let alone a scale for quick orientation on how far something is at the current zoom level. All they really have going for them at this point for me is public transport data (not the UI though). A case in point: Google "maps": https://megous.com/dl/tmp/46f0e2aff9573bba.png https://megous.com/dl/tmp/46f0e2aff9573bba.png Actual maps: https://megous.com/dl/tmp/003b6d5bc0f15199.png https://megous.com/dl/tmp/003b6d5bc0f15199.png (with forests where forests really are, lol)

otabdeveloper4 6y ago

Maps.me is OSM under the hood, and it's very popular and far ahead of the Google offering on features and completeness.

blinding-streak 6y ago
Citation needed.
lukeqsee 6y ago
Agreed. It just has a cluttered and sometimes confusing interface (in my experience) which makes it difficult for me to intuitively use it for routing especially. So I typically use Apple Maps for routing—because it just works and is easy.
TulliusCicero 6y ago
Open source software is often comparable or even superior to the proprietary sort in feature set, the kind of thing you can list in bullet points. But it tends to fall down when it comes to user experience. I remember attempting to use OSM on my phone before, and I remember being similarly confused about "which app should I use?" and the ones I tried just being fairly clunky. But I'll give maps.me a try, I can't remember if that was one of them.
- mixedCase 6y ago
  OsmAnd~ (F-Droid build) has been serving me well for the past 5 years or so and it's gotten a lot of love over time in the UI/UX side.
  - paulryanrogers 6y ago
    Is the tilde part of the name?
    - asddubs 6y ago
      Yes, and it's only on F-Droid. Apparently there's OsmAnd and OsmAnd+, and the one with the tilde is basically the + version with no dependencies on google services. At least according to german wikipedia, which had a convenient little table

foepys 6y ago

Some local public transportation "companies" in Germany (which are called "Anstalt des öffentlichen Rechts" - literal translation "entity of public law" - and are more or less non-profit businesses funded by the city) are using OSM data for their apps and websites and they often edit the bus/tram/train routes and stops if they change them. This is where OSM shines: public entities keeping their data up to date for the benefit of all.

izacus 6y ago
Is that really so much different than those same companies pushing their timetable feeds directly to Google for display in GMaps? Where does OSM provide value here and how can it beat GMaps in mindshare and keep suriving?
- Retric 6y ago
  It’s simply more efficient to update OSM, which makes OSM more up to date. Google maps pulled data from OSM so the government had ~zero incentives to publish to GMaps and every other mapping service directly. It’s simply more work without benefit. PS: If I remember correct Google was on a 2 week delay for OSM data at the time, but that wasn’t considered meaningful. Also, what’s with all the hate here?
  - esarbe 6y ago
    I don't know. Just ignore them, the hate is not relevant.
- foepys 6y ago
  I can pull, analyze, and use the data I paid for with my taxes instead of having to beg Google or any other company for access to the data.
- croes 6y ago
  OSM is non-profit, Google is not. Google tracks the users, OSM does not.

liotier 6y ago

Openstreetmap is not an end-user oriented product - but it is perceived through such products. Understanding what might make it more useful to developers benefits from competitive analysis of the consumer products.

bradbeattie 6y ago

> OSM simply has to exist, and the longer it exists, the better the data will become. Probably, but not necessarily. The world changes with time and if OSM contributions languish, it falls out of date with the world and tangibly becomes a worse product. Certainly not inevitable, but a possibility worth noting.

quietbritishjim 6y ago
Agreed. In fact, I think the OSM total fraction of errors will exponentially decay towards some non-zero fixed fraction of errors. That's because, on average in the long term, the world probably changes at an approximately fixed rate (relative to total mappable features in the world) and OSM is updated/corrected at a fixed rate (relative to fraction of mappable features that are wrong or missing). Even given the benefit of a lot of time, the OSM can never catch up with a mapping service that updates faster because that other service will have a different equilibrium.
- Twisell 6y ago
  As of current technology every geographical database lag behind real world and took time to catch up. 20 year ago the average lag was often accounted in years between two survey. It would be nice to determine some random controls points and compare lag on different mapping service. The average lag would maybe maybe drop under a year for some (and it will depend on which feature, road update faster than building if you account for gps data). However I really don't see why OSM would necessarily lag more than Google Map or any commercial database. Because the more OSM usage is widespread (directly or through apps) the more human "field sensors" you get to update the map. Same way that I don't think many commercial encyclopedia can claim that they are more up-to-date than Wikipedia to record new facts.
Bakary 6y ago
The places where the data matters might keep a healthy update rhythm

dheera 6y ago

Yeah I was here to say this. OSM doesn't even compete with Google Maps, or rather, Google Maps doesn't even compete with OSM if you want to do any kind of large scale analysis on streets without silly licensing restrictions.

howlgarnish 6y ago

> the longer it exists, the better the data will become. This is unfortunately not a given. The world changes constantly, and things like having up to date coverage of restaurants require an immense amount of essentially ephemeral work to keep up to date.

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
That's why there should be a decoupled architecture. I am not an OSM expert. It may have this already. I am all for OSM, and sincerely wish it great success. What I do have, however, is experience in founding a worldwide, federated infrastructure that supports a fairly specialized (read: "small") demographic, but does that exceedingly well. It has become a worldwide standard, and is being taken to the next level by a team that doesn't really include me, anymore. It has a lot of structural support for federation. The idea is to push specialization away from the core as far and as fast as possible. The core is a relatively simple, tightly-focused, ultra-high-quality database engine, with a powerful semantic API. The services are addons that were written by some really energetic and skilled people that bring far more to the table than Yours Truly. In fact, these addons are what made the system suddenly become a "must have" for everyone. I'm assuming that OSM should have a "core mission" of geographic data, which is really just geolocation stuff. Basically, tagged locations. The tags can be used to relate the locations to external datasets. I would then assume that things like businesses, government services, and other geotagged datasets are attached as adapters to the "core," so they can be managed by others, who are specialized. Google does this (with arguable success) by letting businesses and individual users contribute data. I assume that it uses its own tools to aggregate and clean that data, and probably applies the data in an adapter fashion. This is what they are good at, and at vast scale and performance. Say what you will about them, but they do "big and fast" really well. I have found, through my own experience, that if I want local data to be accurate, it is important to let locals directly supply that data. In my experience, that started with an infrastructure designed for federation, and is realized by writing data harvesters that provide a rich, simple UI. Also, it is important to keep the core "pure." Specializations should be supplied at the adapter level; not by changing the core. For the most part, the central database schema of my system hasn't changed in ten years, but it does a lot more now, than I ever dreamed it would, back then. But that's just me. I don't think I'm anywhere near the level that many people live at. My experience is fairly small and humble. But effective.

betwixthewires 6y ago

I'm with you on the "free projects have forever, proprietary projects have a deadline" line of thinking, I use it often when talking about social networks and microblogging. But one thing to consider is the motivation for predatory or destructive action. The OSM community does not have the motive or the resources for destructive activities towards Google, whereas Google has a motive and resources to sabotage OSM. This sort of thing you see historically with Microsoft and EEE, with Facebook and XMPP, and with lots of other things, including some of Google's behavior. I wrote about this in another comment in this thread (and talked about a solution to the problem), but I believe the existing OSM navigation apps that exist work well, and that the remaining friction point preventing them from competing with google in the consumer navigation market is address lookup. OsmAnd for example is very user friendly and I use it almost exclusively, but looking up addresses is the main difficulty.

distances 6y ago
I really wany to love OsmAnd, but I'm not sure I agree on the user friendliness yet. First thing user feels is how slow the rendering is while panning. I can't measure it but I'd guess about 10fps on my phone, and the area revealed by panning is all grey for a good while before it gets drawn. It's fine for a tool, but has no chance to compete for casual end users like this.
- usrusr 6y ago
  But fast OSM renderers exist. Take a look at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=gr.talent.cruiser https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=gr.talent.crui... for an example. It's perfectly smooth. The application is closed source but the underlying renderer (VTM) is LGPL3. The renderer, https://github.com/mapsforge/vtm https://github.com/mapsforge/vtm, is basically an OpenGL alternative for the mapsforge offline maps format and maintained by the same guy (the original mapsforge renderer is arguably a bit slow, struggling to hide its slowness behind cached tile bitmaps).
  - distances 6y ago
    Damn, that's very smooth! Way better than Google Maps. Do you have any insights why this isn't used by OsmAnd?