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I love Waze, but the product has stagnated. I’d love simple things like the ability for it to get me where I want N minutes early instead of exactly on time (I
by teeray 3y ago
I love Waze, but the product has stagnated. I’d love simple things like the ability for it to get me where I want N minutes early instead of exactly on time (I hate hacking this in with synthetic calendar events). It’d also be nice to be able to file mobile orders with Dunkin’ / Starbucks / etc. on my route and have them executed when I’m within range of them, so my order is hot when I arrive.
But yeah, let’s have more zany celebrity voices.
- Workaccount2 3y agoA google product stagnating? No way!
- aceazzameen 3y agoI'm actually happy it's stagnant. It works well and I don't want it ruined because someone is under pressure to ship a new feature.
- whylo 3y agoBut in Google-land, doesn't that mean it's next on the chopping block?
- jerrygenser 3y agoGoogle puts things on the chopping block due to small userbase or not enough user growth. A very large user base product but which has stagnated should be fine as long as users don't start leavign
- agloe_dreams 3y agoWaze was bought to keep it away from Google Maps. Google actually doesn't want it to succeed.
- aceazzameen 3y agoYes and no. Waze provides data points to Google Maps that it wouldn't otherwise have. Like crashes, objects on road, cars pulled over, police speed traps, etc. Waze users provide that data, and Google Maps gets to display it for free. The day when that data input capability is merged into Google Maps completely is when Waze will be shut down and the user experience will slowly be enshitified.
- jethro_tell 3y agoTake search for example.
- k4rli 3y agoRecently they updated Android Auto version of Waze with new UI and it hasn't been as usable since. Route changing features (or some of them) have disappeared somewhere
- stronglikedan 3y agoAnd also it's nearly impossible to report or confirm hazards for those with a trackpad input. I'd have rather it did remain stagnant, lol!
- unethical_ban 3y agoI dream of using a Stream deck for physical buttons for reporting hazards instantly. I wish I had permanent "Police reported this side", "police reported that side", "vehicle on shoulder", "Road hazard" buttons immediately accessible like my hazard lights are. Having to tap through a few screens of navigation in the app is annoying.
- tashoecraft 3y agoYeah I've stopped using it entirely. It feels very dated, the ads are obnoxious, and I don't speed as much anymore so it's primary benefit is gone.
- xyzelement 3y agoIsn't the last thing the key thing?
- tashoecraft 3y agoI don't think so. It does coincide with me degoogling my life, but I was holding on to waze longer than everything else. It's more the product just became bad. When at a stoplight I sometimes want to take a look at directions, not have an ad for Mcdonalds take over my screen. That's an experience that benefits no one, and infuriates me. I'd say that alone made me stop.
- k4rli 3y agoI haven't seen a single ad in Waze ever. Granted I'm fortunate enough to not reside in NA as well.
- tashoecraft 3y agoInteresting, yeah that sounds nice. In NA it's really bad, maybe they have toned it down, but it felt like every stop sign or red light I got an ad.
- scrlk 3y agoGive it some time and a Google PM will find a way to shoehorn in chat functionality for their next promotion.
- mewmew07 3y agothen get cause it to get shutdown on the next cycle
- henry2023 3y agoBelieve it or not, shutting down a product is something you can brag about in perf. My current manager went form L6 to L7 mainly because of that.
- xyzelement 3y agoI totally believe it and it's the right way. Few jobs ago I advocated to shut down a business unit that wasn't profitable and as far as I could tell (this was controversial) had no path to profitability. Shutting it down, we freed up about 200 million per year, which is the same or better as earnings that amount.
- maratc 3y agoLaugh all you want, but Waze actually has less of the "social" side to it today than it had ten years ago. Maybe some Google PM even got promoted for removing some chat functionality for once.
- bushbaba 3y agoIt’s stagnated as google is pushing people to maps. No surprise there.
- wffurr 3y agoFormer CEO has a big rant on why it's impossible to do things at Google: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-did-i-leave-google-stay-so-long-noam-bardin https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-did-i-leave-google-stay-s... Previously discussed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26165809 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26165809
- Spivak 3y ago> This counted on the fact that Google had promised us autonomy to continue to act as Waze and we believed them. Why does this keep happening? It is false 100% of the time. Are people really watching the sun come up every morning and thinking, "okay but tomorrow it won't." > I believed that I could build out Waze within Google, breaking the myth about what happens to companies after being acquired by large corporations Nice cautionary tale, but I'm different. > Perhaps Corp-Tech should move to employee share buy back where employees must sacrifice some of their salary for equity or change equity to vest by a product related metric to connect the teams performance with the employee returns. Performance based incentives never work for people who are not directly revenue generating. One piston in your engine working extra hard is meaningless, the credit to getting you to your destination is the driver. And when cogs in the machine lose out on their "performance" incentive because they never had any control to begin with they get angry, burnt out, and leave. Within a corporation you have to make the labor theory of value true and reward effort even if it's pointless. You put the responsibility of delivering meaningful value on the people directing where that effort goes. > while on line, a Googler ahead of us was overheard saying “What? Sushi again???” which became our inside joke around entitlement. But several months later, we had been co-opted as well and it was Waze employees complaining about the food This both completely misunderstands and exactly gets why entitlement is the wrong concept. Everyone's happiness and contentment regresses to the mean eventually when their lives get better and when they get worse. Someone complaining about the sushi is genuinely and reasonably annoyed because that very literally made their day worse. People see that as entitlement because they're forgetting how happiness in humans actually works. Whether this is a comfort or nihilistic is up to you but Elon Musk is not happier than you.
- vxNsr 3y ago
- gumballindie 3y agoI am the opposite. I enjoy using waze precisely because it doesn't change much. If i want to find a specific shop i use google maps, which then opens to location directly in waze.
- acomjean 3y agoI had Mr. T yelling directions at me from my old TomTom. It really cut through any other noise in the car. I miss that The only downside mr T couldn't tell me street names (though with ai voice...)
- NDizzle 3y agoMore people need Mr. T yelling at them in the car. MERGE, FOOL!
- artificial 3y ago[flagged]
- potency 3y ago`I pity the foo that doesn't take a right at the second exit in the upcoming round-about` It feels like a lot of the 'fun' in apps has been removed over the years.
- giancarlostoro 3y ago> It’d also be nice to be able to file mobile orders with Dunkin’ / Starbucks / etc. on my route and have them executed when I’m within range of them, so my order is hot when I arrive. So much talk about AI, but we dont get simple things that go a long way, and don't even need AI to function. What we will get instead is a forced option that buys dunkin and starbucks anytime you drive near them because whenever tech giants release things they think of the most obscure / under QA'd way to implement and release them.
- stronglikedan 3y agoWell, celebrity voices, and updates that break things! The recently released a nice, pretty new Android Auto UI that prevents people from reporting and confirming hazards if they are using a trackpad input. So there's that.
- Andrew_nenakhov 3y agoStagnated? Pray they don't sunset it any further.
- devnullbrain 3y ago>I’d love simple things like the ability for it to get me where I want N minutes early instead of exactly on time It's really astonishing how many obvious things like this aren't implemented on either Google Maps or Waze. And for those that do exist, they feel like they've been designed by someone who has never driven outside of California and never used mixed-mode transport.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- curiousllama 3y agoMcDonalds was building this kind of thing years ago. Ie ask the app to ping you in a few hours when you’re near a McDonald’s on your road trip. Two clicks: one to order the usual, one to give you directions. The tech exists + it’s an obvious good idea. I wonder if just not enough people used it
- hospitalJail 3y agoWhy do you use Waze instead of Google maps? I read the wikipedia article and it sounds like google maps with a bit of extra user input. Never felt a reason to switch.
- mr-ron 3y agoFor me, its a better CarPlay experience with the phone. Google maps has very tiny text that is hard to read. Waze has a great high contract view of all upcoming turns that is easy to drive with.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]