Remote View
Google is preparing to kill Waze
Google is preparing to kill Waze
Firing the sales team = less income = some higher up will see declining profits = it will be killed
115 comments
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Google kills everything it touches
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https://killedbygoogle.com/ is a great site to see them all. It's A LOT.
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288 services dead
Pretty sure if this was any other industry there would be a lot of shit thrown, but because its Google they somehow get away with it.
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Google maps is pretty damn good though - but I do like Waze for road trips
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Do Only Harm
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Google cross Reddit when?
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Well that is unfortunate, Waze is a great community that showed what is possible with crowdsourced information and keeping people from getting as many sepeding tickets
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Crowdsourcing proprietary software - it ends the same every time. People should just do OpenStreetMaps instead
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If you actually care about crowdsourced information, please consider contributing to your local area in OpenStreetMaps. There's way more to crowdsourcing than just avoiding speeding tickets!
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Until cities started going "hey, why do they have more info about where our cops are than us" and threatened to sue. Last I heard, that feature was banned in several states.
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Then again, another great way to reduce speeding tickets is not speeding.
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Seriously ?
Cop are master at putting trap in the worst area possible, like where it goes from 110 to 90 then 110 again over 200 meters.
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Read the article... It's transitioning to a different ad team, so cost reduction when only one system for ads is needed. I don't think this will be cancelled since their community is actively keeping it alive.
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But Google traditionally is operating internal teams as competing teams. So Waze has a great chance of being seen as a "competing" product to Google maps. A customer sent to Waze might be seen as a customer lost to Waze. For example Waze added first the integration with Spotify in 2017, never supported Google play music and only after years it supported YouTube music. If they felt that they were under the same company (they were acquired five years earlier), they should have been integrated Google play music first, Spotify second (or both, GPM was killed three years later).
Regarding the community, i saw a lot of mods doing a lot of unpaid work. And i mean A LOT, they are investing hours of their free time to improve maps for a multi billion corporation. But when I tried to login, i had the impression that it was abandoned since the acquisition. The interface design is very outdated and it's very hard for a regular user to find this place as it's not advertised anywhere (i got the link when I sent a correction to the map from the app)
And corrections appear to be unidirectional. Something that gets fixed or flagged in Google maps doesn't transfer to Waze, but the opposite happens.
Again on Android auto, Waze got split screen support 6 months after it was publicly announced and one year after it was available in the public beta channel on the play store. No communication between the two teams in the same company, the android auto team treated the Waze team as they were some independent company
Seeing Google history, i give 3 years max before they wind down Waze.
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Enshitawaze
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Google
Killing a functional product
Is it Tuesday again?
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It's a day that ends in '-y'.
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Papi
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I'd like to see more Waze features integrated into Google Maps.
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Use the ones in Magic Earth.
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Same. I'm surprised that they haven't merged the apps years ago. I thought it was only a matter of time, but Waze continued to exist for many years.
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Waze is quite a different experience than Google Maps when driving, so it's made sense to keep them as two separate apps.
Google Maps is "I want to get from point A to point B in a normal way."
Waze is "I want the most aggressively quick way; no back street is too small for me."
I feel like OP has gone too far with the editorialised headline this time, as the only thing that's happening at this point is switching Waze over to use the standard Google ad platform rather than their custom system.
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Kind of an alarmist headline, and not at all what the article says.
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Google: Google remains deeply committed to growing Waze’s unique brand
Also Google: And how are we going to achieve that? By decreasing the workforce that works on waze
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Magic earth seems pretty good.
HD traffic and report a cop. Also not google and privacy built.
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I'm very impressed about it. I wonder how they're making money if they don't sell traffic data or ads or telemetry. Their server expenses aren't cheap
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I had the same thought. So I emailed them and asked last year. Below is the reply:
Hello, We are glad that you like Magic Earth! Magic Earth is free for end users, but we have a paid SDK - you can check generalmagic.com for more info. We have partnerships with companies such as Selectric, Smarter AI, Absolute Cycling etc.
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I'm going to give this a try today and see how it goes. Only concern is gmaps routing is probably more advanced... But it probably wouldn't be too bad for trips you know 90%+ of the way.
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Do cops still do speed traps? I haven't seen one in years.
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Come down to GA where it seems like all they ever do is sit around to speed trap people. And also train as a paramilitary.
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Now is the time to start encouraging Waze users to try Magic Earth!
It also has social reporting features, uses open street maps, and has a real privacy policy.
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Nice, i hope it doesn't do like maps.me where they slowly enshittified the app
Later I'll check if it has android auto support (if it doesn't, it's DOA)
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do you know when support for Android Auto is implemented and working fully?
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Just tried it, Android auto support is present and looks well done
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Is there anyone who didn't see this coming when they first bought Waze?
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They surprisingly worked almost independently for a decade, i was expecting that it would be killed in 2015
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Oof click bait. They're just switching ad teams.
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Don't state your speculation as fact, it's really bad.
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Oh for fuck sake.
Fuck Google. I used Waze since it didnt need a Google account and was still reasonably popular in my area.
If I have to use a Google account for this shit, I dont know what I'd do.
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you already need to use a google account, no? I tried to login again in my new phone, i could only login with google
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In my country Waze is the literal go-to app for drivers.
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Waze editor here. Based on the article’s content, this post’s title is a bit of an overreaction. Google would be a fool to kill off a platform with more accurate street maps than its core platform, maintained by a vibrant group of volunteers, at least without creating or migrating those tools over to GMaps.
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Oh sweet summer child. Google could turn off waze with no warning. Are you going to switch to bing maps? If every waze member stopped using any google service as a result, would their bottom line be affected in any meaningful way?
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Sorry to hear this, I really liked the social aspect of Waze where you could report things you saw on the road.
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Looks like ads will start being pushed through the Google Ads manager now. Likely as another placement in Performance Max.
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The Waze UI is soooo much nicer that GMaps on iOS 😢
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Shouldn't uneditorilised headlines be a rule around these parts too? Take your hot takes to the comments or the body text.
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**Thread locked, massive speculation in title. **
This is a simple consolidation of business units, which always result in job cuts — because consolidating means bringing together teams that have a number of duplicate roles between them.
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the article and OP's headline do not match
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Right? Layoffs are layoffs, they affected more than just Waze. Waze is being moved into the Maps division so it makes sense (unfortunately) that some jobs become redundant.
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Well, there goes my little Halo Warthog as me on my screen. :( Wish there was an app I can just customize that shit how I want.
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Classic Google
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I'm shocked to hear. Waze was even updated to properly work with Android Auto's new layout.
I much prefer Waze with Android Auto than Google Maps.
Google Maps reads out every single word and highway number and repeats itself over and over again with directions within seconds of itself. Waze just tells you to turn left or right.
Plus you can report cops, potholes, construction, etc with Waze on the fly with a few touches on my dash screen. Maps only seems to have that if you use Android Auto on the phone screen. Doesn't work in my car.
I'll miss Waze.
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at this point I'm not sure how any sane person can have trust in a Google product. Things get killed left, right and centre 🪦
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damn, rip Waze 🥲 never really used it but could see the value
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Genuinely surprised they let it live this long. I expected when they acquired Waze that they would gut and dump.
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Google's business model is basically just killing things you love, right?
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Bro whyyyyyyyyyyyy
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I wonder if anyone predicted this when Google bought Waze...it's not like Google has a history of killing major projects when they acquire them.
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The main thing I love about Waze which Apple Maps and Google don't have is the ability to have the always on speed limit.
I know Google shows the speed limit sometimes when navigating, I just liked Waze better because I can have it always on.
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Wait, since when does Google own Waze? I thought they were competitors?
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It's been 10 years.
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Is there a decent open source alternative for navigation?
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osmand - https://osmand.net/ - is open source, their plus app that has more features and android auto support is paid on the play store though.
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Can recommend Organic Maps, works great. Its Open Source and with OSM data. But its offline only so you need a lot of free storage space and don't get stuff like live traffic infos, ratings etc.
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I've been trying them out. Its pretty good and has a decent OSM editor built in. My main wishes for it would be better integration with ORS routing and some sort of social mapping (ideally federated on ActivityPub using Place objects and notes) for stuff that is not long lasting enough for OSM (for example Waze like traffic and obstacle reporting) as well as discussions for OSM objects since there really isn't a good place for that either.
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completely open source, no
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I'm sad for this move, but tbh I use Google maps more than Waze.
115 comments