6 ms·

One of my biggest irks with Google Maps is how aggressively it shows pins for hotels, bars and restaurants, even on their search results map. Do users really fe

One of my biggest irks with Google Maps is how aggressively it shows pins for hotels, bars and restaurants, even on their search results map. Do users really feel the need for this constant in-your-face advertisement? But as I type this, I realized Google is primarily an ad business and whatever will drive that revenue will get pushed further. Oh well.

kristopolous 3y ago
Google maps can't be a cheap service to run. If this is the trade-off then ok. There's always OSM
- londons_explore 3y ago
  Google telephones most businesses in the world multiple times per year to confirm opening hours and ask what their hours will be at Christmas/other holidays. Let that sink in. They have an actual human put actual minutes into speaking with every single business in their database. Think how much that alone must cost. And they put all that money in simply so users can be a little more certain that the opening hours shown are correct.
  - beebeepka 3y ago
    Most businesses in the world? I'd like some proof. Unless, of course, you and I have different ideas of what "the world" is
    - spyke112 3y ago
      I own a business in Denmark, I never received a call as described. I received lots of email reminders though, because this is something you can update yourself.
    - retSava 3y ago
      Snarky, but I expect that to be a kind-of circle with a small radius, around their offices and the favorite places their employees in SF visit. Never heard of this happening, and not something I'd expect google to do. I'd expect them to send emails at most, with a link to some page that is broken for anyone not using Chrome, then no support available.
      - londons_explore 3y ago
        Maybe my business is a corner case which avoids the automation - I am open usually 9-5ish, but can be open anytime if a customer rings the well and waits for someone to get out of bed. Google has an actual human call every 2-3 months, who usually just asks the opening hours, confirms one other detail (usually the website) and then says goodbye.
        TheDong 3y ago
        > Google has an actual human call I guess congrats to google on passing the turing test
      - Loocid 3y ago
        A local restaurant near me in Australia said they had a Google employee ring asking to confirm their opening times.
  - blendergeek 3y ago
    > They have an actual human put actual minutes into speaking with every single business in their database. Think how much that alone must cost. They may have done this in years past. I have worked in fast food for the last decades and I get Google's calls. They are all automated and the robot on the other end never understands me because the hours of the places I manage aren't simple enough to explain to Google's AI. Of course OSM can't be updated with up-to-the-minute opening hours at all.
    - franga2000 3y ago
      > Of course OSM can't be updated with up-to-the-minute opening hours at all. What do you mean by this? The spec seems to allow it https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:opening_hours/specification https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:opening_hours/specif...
      - blendergeek 3y ago
        The spec is very detailed and allows a lot of granularity. Unfortunately, real businesses often don't have set holiday schedules but rather play it by ear each year. OSM has no way to add "this business will be closed on these holidays this year, next year might be different". When lots of businesses introduced modified hours during the Covid lockdowns, there was no concept of temporary opening hours so a "opening_hours:covid19" was introduced. Older data consumers simply ignored that tag. More generally OSM is only for data that is (mostly) permanent. Adding "this business will be closed for Christmas this year" is not OSM data. "This business is closed on Christmas" can be added on OSM. But many businesses don't plan that far ahead as to have set announced holiday hours that can be written in the OSM opening_hours syntax.
    - lode 3y ago
      > Of course OSM can't be updated with up-to-the-minute opening hours at all. Of course it can. I regularly add opening hours of businesses I frequent on OSM, including special cases like public holidays.
      - 3y ago
  - NaiveBayesian 3y ago
    These calls should be automated in most cases [1]. Still an impressive feat, but there is no way they are paying a large number of people to phone through all businesses in the world. [1] https://support.google.com/business/answer/7690269?hl=en https://support.google.com/business/answer/7690269?hl=en
rf15 3y ago
yeah nobody cares about the "Latest in <location>" menu that takes up a third of your phone's screen when you use the Maps app.
- passerby1 3y ago
  Does anyone know how to turn it off forever?
  - rf15 3y ago
    a year ago at least (when I dexompiled the app) it was explicitely not possible.
- ryan_lane 3y ago
  I'm probably one of the few who really likes this feature, though I do wish it was something I navigated to, rather than it being so obtrusive. I moved somewhere new in the past few years, and it's pretty great when you're exploring a new neighborhood you know nothing about.
francislavoie 3y ago
Honestly yes, I usually am looking for restaurants etc nearby.
- plibither8 3y ago
  Interesting. I have an inherent distrust with reviews and descriptions on Google Maps, at least for where I live (India). I usually resort to other services to look for good restaurant/hotel recommendations.
- oefrha 3y ago
  Restaurants, to each their own. A dozen hotels marked within a five mile radius of my home, which Google knows very well about, at all times? That’s just stupid.
  - squeaky-clean 3y ago
    You can exclude targeting people on Google Maps ads when they're near their home. If the hotels want to pay for more impressions and not target their ads appropriately, Google is happy to take their money. This is really more the hotel marketing team's fault than Google's.
- satvikpendem 3y ago
  If I do I just search for restaurants though.
Humbly8967 3y ago
Yes, there are many possible conflicts of interest in mapping. This is why I'm excited to see the improving usability of Open Street Maps through apps like Organic Maps, and big commercial investments in open mapping data from the Overture Maps Foundation. In many cases OSM has much more detail than google maps, with business listings and addresses being the biggest exceptions I have encountered. Fortunately, business listings are one of the main things added to the first data release from Overture Maps. For the curious, you can interact with the POI data [here.](https://bdon.github.io/overture-tiles/places.html https://bdon.github.io/overture-tiles/places.html)
- WA 3y ago
  If you really just want a map, go use OSM. I love it as well and even contributed. But Google Maps is much more than OSM. The biggest difference and most important feature is its real-time traffic. OSM is just a totally different product seen through the car navigation lens.
  - Doctor_Fegg 3y ago
    Absolutely true. OSM, conversely, is an infinitely better dataset for pedestrian and bike navigation.
    - WA 3y ago
      Yup, have been using it through Komoot for many years for biking and hiking.
  - jhugo 3y ago
    For me the killer Google Maps feature is using it as a search engine. The POI data on OSM has low coverage, is often out-of-date, and lacks reviews, so while it's quite good for (non-car) navigation, it's not very useful at all for finding places meeting certain criteria.
- inadequatespace 3y ago
  The non-starter with OSM for me is lack* of high-DPI ("retina") support, making it like rubbing my eyes with scratchy wool when I try to read it * well, there's https://osm.rrze.fau.de/testhd.html https://osm.rrze.fau.de/testhd.html , but that has no search.
dimator 3y ago
This feature has surfaced locations that I never would have known about. I don't mind it.
bambax 3y ago
Yes, absolutely. They seem to be imprinted on the tiles, too, you can't filter them out with an ad-block rule. The API doesn't show all this in satellite (aerial view) mode, so sometimes it's tempting to use a service that relies on the maps API. But even with the API it seems that now the maps view has all those pins for places; I seem to remember it wasn't always the case, but I'm not sure.
fouc 3y ago
What irks me more is that I'll see pins for hotels, restaurants, etc.. but a search won't surface/highlight the pins I'm looking directly at! Also attempting to search for a property that happens to have "hotel" or "apartment" in their name automatically switches to the stupid hotel finder interface, which only shows hotels that are bookable from online.
gundmc 3y ago
I'm pretty sure only the square pins are ads. So the deluge of hotel pins showing in the map near my house isn't even making them money, it's just an out of control algorithm or terrible product choice.
- lopis 3y ago
  But Google makes commissions on hotel bookings through maps.
true_religion 3y ago
Many people use hotels, bars, and restaurants as landmarks. If you know an area, it’s easier to remember something is near so and so resturaunt than to remember street names (if in fact your streets actually have names).

kristopolous 3y ago

Google maps can't be a cheap service to run. If this is the trade-off then ok. There's always OSM

londons_explore 3y ago
Google telephones most businesses in the world multiple times per year to confirm opening hours and ask what their hours will be at Christmas/other holidays. Let that sink in. They have an actual human put actual minutes into speaking with every single business in their database. Think how much that alone must cost. And they put all that money in simply so users can be a little more certain that the opening hours shown are correct.
- beebeepka 3y ago
  Most businesses in the world? I'd like some proof. Unless, of course, you and I have different ideas of what "the world" is
  - spyke112 3y ago
    I own a business in Denmark, I never received a call as described. I received lots of email reminders though, because this is something you can update yourself.
  - retSava 3y ago
    Snarky, but I expect that to be a kind-of circle with a small radius, around their offices and the favorite places their employees in SF visit. Never heard of this happening, and not something I'd expect google to do. I'd expect them to send emails at most, with a link to some page that is broken for anyone not using Chrome, then no support available.
    - londons_explore 3y ago
      Maybe my business is a corner case which avoids the automation - I am open usually 9-5ish, but can be open anytime if a customer rings the well and waits for someone to get out of bed. Google has an actual human call every 2-3 months, who usually just asks the opening hours, confirms one other detail (usually the website) and then says goodbye.
      - TheDong 3y ago
        > Google has an actual human call I guess congrats to google on passing the turing test
    - Loocid 3y ago
      A local restaurant near me in Australia said they had a Google employee ring asking to confirm their opening times.
- blendergeek 3y ago
  > They have an actual human put actual minutes into speaking with every single business in their database. Think how much that alone must cost. They may have done this in years past. I have worked in fast food for the last decades and I get Google's calls. They are all automated and the robot on the other end never understands me because the hours of the places I manage aren't simple enough to explain to Google's AI. Of course OSM can't be updated with up-to-the-minute opening hours at all.
  - franga2000 3y ago
    > Of course OSM can't be updated with up-to-the-minute opening hours at all. What do you mean by this? The spec seems to allow it https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:opening_hours/specification https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:opening_hours/specif...
    - blendergeek 3y ago
      The spec is very detailed and allows a lot of granularity. Unfortunately, real businesses often don't have set holiday schedules but rather play it by ear each year. OSM has no way to add "this business will be closed on these holidays this year, next year might be different". When lots of businesses introduced modified hours during the Covid lockdowns, there was no concept of temporary opening hours so a "opening_hours:covid19" was introduced. Older data consumers simply ignored that tag. More generally OSM is only for data that is (mostly) permanent. Adding "this business will be closed for Christmas this year" is not OSM data. "This business is closed on Christmas" can be added on OSM. But many businesses don't plan that far ahead as to have set announced holiday hours that can be written in the OSM opening_hours syntax.
  - lode 3y ago
    > Of course OSM can't be updated with up-to-the-minute opening hours at all. Of course it can. I regularly add opening hours of businesses I frequent on OSM, including special cases like public holidays.
    - 3y ago
- NaiveBayesian 3y ago
  These calls should be automated in most cases [1]. Still an impressive feat, but there is no way they are paying a large number of people to phone through all businesses in the world. [1] https://support.google.com/business/answer/7690269?hl=en https://support.google.com/business/answer/7690269?hl=en

rf15 3y ago

yeah nobody cares about the "Latest in <location>" menu that takes up a third of your phone's screen when you use the Maps app.

passerby1 3y ago
Does anyone know how to turn it off forever?
- rf15 3y ago
  a year ago at least (when I dexompiled the app) it was explicitely not possible.
ryan_lane 3y ago
I'm probably one of the few who really likes this feature, though I do wish it was something I navigated to, rather than it being so obtrusive. I moved somewhere new in the past few years, and it's pretty great when you're exploring a new neighborhood you know nothing about.

francislavoie 3y ago

Honestly yes, I usually am looking for restaurants etc nearby.

plibither8 3y ago
Interesting. I have an inherent distrust with reviews and descriptions on Google Maps, at least for where I live (India). I usually resort to other services to look for good restaurant/hotel recommendations.
oefrha 3y ago
Restaurants, to each their own. A dozen hotels marked within a five mile radius of my home, which Google knows very well about, at all times? That’s just stupid.
- squeaky-clean 3y ago
  You can exclude targeting people on Google Maps ads when they're near their home. If the hotels want to pay for more impressions and not target their ads appropriately, Google is happy to take their money. This is really more the hotel marketing team's fault than Google's.
satvikpendem 3y ago
If I do I just search for restaurants though.

Humbly8967 3y ago

Yes, there are many possible conflicts of interest in mapping. This is why I'm excited to see the improving usability of Open Street Maps through apps like Organic Maps, and big commercial investments in open mapping data from the Overture Maps Foundation. In many cases OSM has much more detail than google maps, with business listings and addresses being the biggest exceptions I have encountered. Fortunately, business listings are one of the main things added to the first data release from Overture Maps. For the curious, you can interact with the POI data [here.](https://bdon.github.io/overture-tiles/places.html https://bdon.github.io/overture-tiles/places.html)

WA 3y ago
If you really just want a map, go use OSM. I love it as well and even contributed. But Google Maps is much more than OSM. The biggest difference and most important feature is its real-time traffic. OSM is just a totally different product seen through the car navigation lens.
- Doctor_Fegg 3y ago
  Absolutely true. OSM, conversely, is an infinitely better dataset for pedestrian and bike navigation.
  - WA 3y ago
    Yup, have been using it through Komoot for many years for biking and hiking.
- jhugo 3y ago
  For me the killer Google Maps feature is using it as a search engine. The POI data on OSM has low coverage, is often out-of-date, and lacks reviews, so while it's quite good for (non-car) navigation, it's not very useful at all for finding places meeting certain criteria.
inadequatespace 3y ago
The non-starter with OSM for me is lack* of high-DPI ("retina") support, making it like rubbing my eyes with scratchy wool when I try to read it * well, there's https://osm.rrze.fau.de/testhd.html https://osm.rrze.fau.de/testhd.html , but that has no search.

dimator 3y ago

This feature has surfaced locations that I never would have known about. I don't mind it.

bambax 3y ago

Yes, absolutely. They seem to be imprinted on the tiles, too, you can't filter them out with an ad-block rule. The API doesn't show all this in satellite (aerial view) mode, so sometimes it's tempting to use a service that relies on the maps API. But even with the API it seems that now the maps view has all those pins for places; I seem to remember it wasn't always the case, but I'm not sure.

fouc 3y ago

What irks me more is that I'll see pins for hotels, restaurants, etc.. but a search won't surface/highlight the pins I'm looking directly at! Also attempting to search for a property that happens to have "hotel" or "apartment" in their name automatically switches to the stupid hotel finder interface, which only shows hotels that are bookable from online.

gundmc 3y ago

I'm pretty sure only the square pins are ads. So the deluge of hotel pins showing in the map near my house isn't even making them money, it's just an out of control algorithm or terrible product choice.

lopis 3y ago
But Google makes commissions on hotel bookings through maps.

true_religion 3y ago

Many people use hotels, bars, and restaurants as landmarks. If you know an area, it’s easier to remember something is near so and so resturaunt than to remember street names (if in fact your streets actually have names).