Google Maps just fucking SUCKS now

[Scott5114]

Part of the reason I hammer so hard on people taking their own photos whenever possible instead of just relying on GSV to always be there.

Sadly, Internet Archive doesn't archive a lot of pages or photos, so a lot of personal websites will be lost.

Pretty soon, there's going to have to be a serious effort to copy all my pages and photos. We're a heartbeat away from losing it all, and I already have multiple serious health conditions.

My suggestion to anyone who is in this situation is to release your work under a Creative Commons license or to the public domain. There are a whole lot of folks out there who put a lot of effort into preserving freely-licensed content (Wikimedia Commons and the Internet Archive are the most well-known ones but there are others), so you can make use of that to ensure your work is taken care of even if something happens to you or your site.

This does mean that theoretically your images could be used for commercial purposes without compensation, but most people weren't going to be getting compensation for their images anyway. Plus, it's kind of neat when you recognize one of your photos in a news article or whatever.

[pderocco]

Here's something kind of creepy.

I decided to look at GSV from 2020 to see what downtown Portland, Seattle, and Minneapolis looked like after the riots. I couldn't find any 2020 imagery at all. In downtown Portland, I couldn't find any from 2021 or 2022 either. Yet other years, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, were readily available. I could understand not driving through there during the riots, but I'm sure the damage was visible for months afterwards. Kind of seems like they're trying to sanitize history.

Or maybe, just maybe, they don't go through every city every year. That or it could be the worldwide pandemic. I dunno.

Yeah, I suppose the pandemic could be the explanation for 2020. But I never stopped exploring in my car during that year, so I'm not sure why they would. I loved the light traffic.

[vdeane]

Yeah, I suppose the pandemic could be the explanation for 2020. But I never stopped exploring in my car during that year, so I'm not sure why they would. I loved the light traffic.

Gotta eat.  Gotta go to the bathroom.  Car could break down.  Exploring by car sounds socially distant until the logistics are examined, and it turns out that it isn't at some key points.  That's not to say that I didn't roadgeek in 2020, but not to the same extent as a normal year.

[bugo]

I've wondered what will happen to Backlin's Flickr account. It has over 9300 pictures on it. When his pro subscription expires, I assume most of the pictures would disappear. I wonder if there's a way to pay his subscription fee. We could all throw in a dollar or two and it would preserve the pictures for another year.

[epzik8]

I would kill for rural areas to have their first update since 2008.

I've been suspecting for years that Google regrets making Google Maps and providing so much of it for free, hence their lack of investment in customer experience for it.

It's amazing they actually sent one of their vehicles out to the New Mexico-Oklahoma border back then.

[pderocco]

I would kill for rural areas to have their first update since 2008.

I've been suspecting for years that Google regrets making Google Maps and providing so much of it for free, hence their lack of investment in customer experience for it.

I suspect they make plenty of money by making icons pop up for businesses that have paid for that to happen. And they collect fees for web sites that embed Google Maps, at least sites busy enough to matter.

Google Earth is a different matter. I expect their servers are smaller because total usage is lower, but for one user the required bandwidth is much greater. And yet, there are fewer ads. I never use the web version, and the Android app stinks, but the desktop version has always been an impressive program, but it is full of ancient bugs, and they seem to be stripping out features gradually. That's what I fear they may regret releasing for free, and are perhaps hoping that usage can drop to the point where they can just shitcan the whole thing. Personally, I wish they'd just charge for it, and put the money into maintenance and improvement.

[vdeane]

I would kill for rural areas to have their first update since 2008.

I've been suspecting for years that Google regrets making Google Maps and providing so much of it for free, hence their lack of investment in customer experience for it.

I suspect they make plenty of money by making icons pop up for businesses that have paid for that to happen. And they collect fees for web sites that embed Google Maps, at least sites busy enough to matter.

Google Earth is a different matter. I expect their servers are smaller because total usage is lower, but for one user the required bandwidth is much greater. And yet, there are fewer ads. I never use the web version, and the Android app stinks, but the desktop version has always been an impressive program, but it is full of ancient bugs, and they seem to be stripping out features gradually. That's what I fear they may regret releasing for free, and are perhaps hoping that usage can drop to the point where they can just shitcan the whole thing. Personally, I wish they'd just charge for it, and put the money into maintenance and improvement.

I suspect they bought out the company that originally made Google Earth to take out a competitor but had to keep supporting the product because government and other organizations use it and the push-back from actually dropping support would be too much.  The funny thing is, Pro USED to cost money before they made it free a few years back.

[vdeane]

I've noticed another odd thing: in some cities, pegman will change to a blocky blue person.  I've observed it with New York, Toronto, Chicago, LA, and Québec City.  I'm not sure what those cities have in common with each other to cause the switch.

[pderocco]

I've noticed another odd thing: in some cities, pegman will change to a blocky blue person.  I've observed it with New York, Toronto, Chicago, LA, and Québec City.  I'm not sure what those cities have in common with each other to cause the switch.

On what platform? Can you post a screencap? I'm not seeing it on google.com/maps in Edge. It could be just some rendering bug on a particular platform that will disappear on its own, or be fixed pretty quickly.

[bandit957]

I've noticed another odd thing: in some cities, pegman will change to a blocky blue person.  I've observed it with New York, Toronto, Chicago, LA, and Québec City.  I'm not sure what those cities have in common with each other to cause the switch.

On what platform? Can you post a screencap? I'm not seeing it on google.com/maps in Edge. It could be just some rendering bug on a particular platform that will disappear on its own, or be fixed pretty quickly.

It happens randomly.

[LilianaUwU]

I've noticed another odd thing: in some cities, pegman will change to a blocky blue person.  I've observed it with New York, Toronto, Chicago, LA, and Québec City.  I'm not sure what those cities have in common with each other to cause the switch.

On what platform? Can you post a screencap? I'm not seeing it on google.com/maps in Edge. It could be just some rendering bug on a particular platform that will disappear on its own, or be fixed pretty quickly.

This is on the latest version of Firefox. Also, LOL at imagining Google will "fix" something they purposefully broke.

[vdeane]

I've noticed another odd thing: in some cities, pegman will change to a blocky blue person.  I've observed it with New York, Toronto, Chicago, LA, and Québec City.  I'm not sure what those cities have in common with each other to cause the switch.

On what platform? Can you post a screencap? I'm not seeing it on google.com/maps in Edge. It could be just some rendering bug on a particular platform that will disappear on its own, or be fixed pretty quickly.

Did you zoom in on the cities I mentioned?  It's geographically based; if you're viewing a different area or zoomed too far out, you get standard pegman.

Also, turns out that "New York" is actually just Manhattan.

This was on Vivaldi on desktop, so the same core rendering engine/browser tech as Edge (they're both Chromium with stuff).

[pderocco]

I've noticed another odd thing: in some cities, pegman will change to a blocky blue person.  I've observed it with New York, Toronto, Chicago, LA, and Québec City.  I'm not sure what those cities have in common with each other to cause the switch.

On what platform? Can you post a screencap? I'm not seeing it on google.com/maps in Edge. It could be just some rendering bug on a particular platform that will disappear on its own, or be fixed pretty quickly.

Did you zoom in on the cities I mentioned?  It's geographically based; if you're viewing a different area or zoomed too far out, you get standard pegman.

Also, turns out that "New York" is actually just Manhattan.

This was on Vivaldi on desktop, so the same core rendering engine/browser tech as Edge (they're both Chromium with stuff).

Still not seeing it in Manhattan, zoomed all the way in. I think this may be something in your machine. Try clearing the browser cache.

[CtrlAltDel]

I've noticed another odd thing: in some cities, pegman will change to a blocky blue person.  I've observed it with New York, Toronto, Chicago, LA, and Québec City.  I'm not sure what those cities have in common with each other to cause the switch.

On what platform? Can you post a screencap? I'm not seeing it on google.com/maps in Edge. It could be just some rendering bug on a particular platform that will disappear on its own, or be fixed pretty quickly.

Did you zoom in on the cities I mentioned?  It's geographically based; if you're viewing a different area or zoomed too far out, you get standard pegman.

Also, turns out that "New York" is actually just Manhattan.

This was on Vivaldi on desktop, so the same core rendering engine/browser tech as Edge (they're both Chromium with stuff).

Still not seeing it in Manhattan, zoomed all the way in. I think this may be something in your machine. Try clearing the browser cache.

I have it too. It switches as you zoom in.






This is with Firefox on Windows 10.

[Rothman]

Mine switched in Chrome, zooming in on Manhattan.  Windows 10 machine.

[pderocco]

Now I see what you mean. When you said "blocky", I was expecting something more dramatic, like a rendering error.

Here's an explanation:

https://www.siliconvalley.com/2024/09/25/why-has-the-google-pegman-turned-blue/

Seems pretty stupid.

[Rothman]

Now I see what you mean. When you said "blocky", I was expecting something more dramatic, like a rendering error.

Here's an explanation:

https://www.siliconvalley.com/2024/09/25/why-has-the-google-pegman-turned-blue/

Seems pretty stupid.

You're the bad guy.

[LilianaUwU]

Seems pretty stupid.

That explains Québec City, considering the queen of basic white girls had a concert here not too long ago.

Still waiting for my Seth Everman "bald guy" pegman...

[vdeane]

Looks like Google Maps users are about to get AI shoved down our throats.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/31/google-maps-is-getting-new-ai-features-powered-by-gemini/

[Rothman]

Looks like Google Maps users are about to get AI shoved down our throats.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/31/google-maps-is-getting-new-ai-features-powered-by-gemini/

Article seems written by AI to boot.

[CtrlAltDel]

Looks like Google Maps users are about to get AI shoved down our throats.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/31/google-maps-is-getting-new-ai-features-powered-by-gemini/

Yay!    Awesome!    Fantastic!

[US 89]

I love how they act like it's a good thing when literally nobody asked for it and 99% of people would rather it not be there.

[jakeroot]

I love how they act like it's a good thing when literally nobody asked for it and 99% of people would rather it not be there.

99% of people don't want help finding things to do or summaries of reviews? Yeah, somehow, I think you might not be right there. As a reminder, most people don't aimlessly browse maps like we do.

Further, as a resident of a foreign country where I'm still learning about new stuff seemingly every week, getting more help finding stuff and summaries of reviews is actually pretty helpful to me.

I didn't ask for these features any more than you all, but should we really be surprised that an AI-focused tech company wants to introduce AI-driven features? No.

[SectorZ]

Looks like Google Maps users are about to get AI shoved down our throats.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/31/google-maps-is-getting-new-ai-features-powered-by-gemini/

Better than Billie Eilish pegman. The only thing society tries to make me like more than AI is her.

[LilianaUwU]

Looks like Google Maps users are about to get AI shoved down our throats.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/31/google-maps-is-getting-new-ai-features-powered-by-gemini/

Better than Billie Eilish pegman. The only thing society tries to make me like more than AI is her.

I prefer a basic white girl to my data being scraped, thank you very much.