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There's two sides to this. There's the corporate/public-good argument, where wikipedia is probably the best OSM analog, so it makes sense. But there's also the
by magicalist 15y ago
There's two sides to this. There's the corporate/public-good argument, where wikipedia is probably the best OSM analog, so it makes sense.
But there's also the user generated content argument, where there are plenty of for profit companies that completely depend on content given for free by their users (youtube, reddit, etc), where the users also benefit from having better content on a site they visit and more attention to the content that they post. From that way of looking at things, it makes perfect sense for property owners to want to have their floor plans up on google maps.
In any case, I disagree that paying to access the maps API is necessarily bad...any OSM host will also charge over any trivial amount of traffic because none of them have the (free) infrastructure to handle it. I do agree with other posters, though, that there should be Data Liberation Front coverage for things like this and data contributed through map maker, and that it should have been that way for years now.
- aubergene 15y agoImagine a large chain of shop sets aside an employee to upload the floor plans for each of their stores. The company would probably find it beneficial if they could download/make available the result of using the tool, so that if they wished they could also make the floor plan available to other map providers.