Original toot in Spanish says: “OK, so I need some alternatives to Google Maps, because I just decided seconds ago to stop using it after I got proposed a trip with a completely unnecessary detour which adds two extra minutes just because it pass by a gas station that sponsors this trip.”
The picture suggests that there was an ad that suggested a stop at the sponsored gas station, if the user clicked on the suggestion / ad, then the route would be modified.
IMO that’s massively different than the detour being added by default. If they actually did / were doing that, it would be a huge scandal, but I don’t think that’s what’s happening here. Instead, it’s just an intrusive, annoying ad.
Your story doesn’t drive clicks though…
Damn monetization of *checks notes* Mastodon and Lemmy! Those communists are ruining everything!
Yeah, about 0% richer now compared with yesterday.
You’re right that this is not generating monetary gains
But it’s generating outrage towards Google when what you accuse them of doing isn’t the reality, that’s pretty disingenuous
Not defending Google as a whole, but let’s keep honest about the current developments
The day sponsored trips are the default is the day I’m dropping Maps
I see your point. I wanted to rely what someone else thought was interesting to share.
I’ve been tuning the title as other people here suggested improvements to it.
Apart from that, I didn’t see the advert/proposed alternative route nor put the ad in there, so I never will be able to reflect the absolute truth. However, echoing this other person experience might lead to others being aware of the possibility. I’d be interested to know if someone else sees something similar.
Here’s some Lemmy gold 🏆
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Might be. It’s indeed hard to tell by the picture, but the user seems to knows the place so I don’t know. What seems about right is the title is misleading so I’m going to change it.
Please change “added a sponsored detour” to “proposed a sponsored detour” and it won’t be as misleading anymore
Thanks for the proposal!
Thanks for doing that.
Guys, try some OpenStreetMap-based alternatives and get rid of Google Maps:
The one big draw of Google maps for me is the real-time traffic info. I don’t think that anything else had the ability to gather the same amount of info (except maybe Apple?)
Waze. Google Maps literally gathers a large part of it’s traffic real time data from Waze (which they also own).
Maybe, but I suspect that Waze has a small fraction of the gmaps user base, so if it has compatible traffic info, it’s because it draws on Google’s data.
Google pulls from Waze, but Waze isn’t allowed to pull data from Google.
I like osmand for off-grid motorcycle type stuff but I’ve found it to be somewhat useless for final mile navigation especially ironically in the city. I still use it as it’s awesome and allows pre-planned offline routes but I also still use gmaps as well. When I drove trucks for a living I found that the Garmin (truck specific but buy what you need) GPS to be quite amazing and will probably buy one of those for my car someday.
Both great ideas but they’re not available to android auto, I’d need an alternative that can load in android auto
Do they work with Android Auto?
Even if this isn’t true, as some here suggest, it still points to an idea that might or might not come to Google Maps in the future. What would prevent them from suggesting multiple routes, where the first route is an advertised one, and we’d have to explicitly scroll a few pixels down to get to the non-advertised one. It’s the same with the Google search results.
So, we should really think of an alternative before it’s too late.
I’ve noticed Waze (owned by Google) sometimes suggests a route I don’t feel like (eg I’m on the highway and not in a rush so I don’t feel like taking an exit Waze suggests), but when I ignore it and it recalculates, the estimated time goes down.
On the one hand, I know that it has to explore the alternative routes from time to time to know which ones are fastest and that if it’s directing a sufficient portion of the overall flow, it has to use multiple routes or else any single route it suggests will become bogged down with too much traffic, but I gotta wonder if there’s other motivations, especially when it’s a highway exit.
Does waze have a fuel saving mode? It might be sending you down an exit because the route uses less fuel. I doubt waze and google maps has enough users to cause too much traffic. Surely most people drive familiar routes. I could be wrong.
If they can’t monetize, they drop. In business terms that makes sense. No profit? Stop the bleeding.
In a wider sense though, Google has done a tremendous job at showing me I can’t rely on them for almost anything. I’ve begun moving email, search, browser, cloud storage… Within a few months Android Auto will be the only thing I can’t undo, except to use my car’s nav. Maybe I’ll do that too.
How has your email transition been? I have been moving away from Google slowly for a few years/intentionally avoiding onboarding with Google services. I don’t use Chrome, no google search, haven’t used messenger ever, that sort of thing.
But moving away from Gmail is hard. Would love your thoughts.
What makes you think non-sponsored routes will even be available then?
IMO this is the main take.
I thought I was going crazy but the last time I used Google maps right as I was at a fork a Walgreens™️ ad took over the whole screen and I was like wtf, thankfully I wasn’t driving so I was able finagle out of it, but it literally took over and we drove past it. I am also looking for alternatives, I’ve been thinking about getting a Garmin for my car, but I’ll be absolutely damned if they think I’m going to tolerate ads that can get me lost in pensly-tucky 😡
This was a joke on here the other day, people were joking about getting 1 or 2 minutes added to their trip to pass a KFC.
People were sharing conspiracies on if they do it or not but the original was a joke. Other commenters said they thought they were kept off main roads for VIPs.
I’m wondering if this was a coincidence or if the two are connected.
I had never heard of this until now.
My personal Google Maps conspiracy is that when I need to take a turn, Maps on Android Auto will say “take right at xyz street” (paraphrased) but if there happens to be a Jack In The Box at the intersection, the maps will always call it out – “take a left after the Jack In The Box” (paraphrased).
I’ve never heard it namedrop any other business like that.
I’ve never heard mine name drop any business and I use it all the time… I’m in Canada so maybe there’s a difference there?
Or maybe a googler leaking the idea disguised as a joke 🤔
I’ve been getting ads in the search results on the iOS version of Google Maps for a while, super irritating.
Apple Maps used to be absolute rubbish but it’s extremely excellent now. It even tells ya when there’s a speed trap up ahead, and it’s been correct 75% of the time for me.
I’ve been meaning to give it a try, but I only ever think of it when I’m already driving, which is probably among the worst possible times to learn a new interface
Fair! It was a bit of adjusting to me, turns look closer overall. But it do love that it vibrates my watch when I get close to a turn (I never use voice.)
It’s so much better than when I first used it, it looks nice now, it has all of the janky addresses I’ve tried, and the watch thing is nice.
