I still use gmail and drive for work but otherwise I'm never logged into anything google at home. Today when I tried to expand on a restaurant's hours it wouldn't let me see them without logging in, although it still worked in incognito. This restaurant screenshot is just a random other example I tried, but for the one I was actually checking google had the correct hours while the official website hasn't been updated in awhile and had the old ones (website said they're still open for dinner but they've only been doing lunch for a year or so now)

I really just need to get off google entirely but I'm also very unmotivated/lazy/ADHD, and the common alternative FOSS maps just don't provide the same level of detail, especially in non-US or English speaking countries.

thats cool, just know youre part of the problem, not the solution.

your reasoning for not leaving is exactly what they want to hear.

Sure, go ahead irritating me when trying to use your service. Pushing me to log-in is THE way to drive me to other services. They have nothing to offer that's worth/can justify logging in. nothing.

If the problem is a lack of suitable alternatives, that’s not the user’s fault. Google even snapped up Waze.

They need to use something. You suggesting they should just go make their own Google Maps?

Depends on where you live, in the EU, openstreetmap.org is way more accurate than Google.

So you're part of the problem or... have no access to information. Do you realize how much more data Google has in some places? I contribute to osm every now and then but still use Google maps for navigation, it's not even comparable.

And you can make a new hobby for yourself by updating things as you come across them

Everyone has their breaking points. The enshittification will continue until morale improves (by leaving Google).

The only Google properties I still use are YouTube and Scholar (occasionally).

They don’t need to, since OpenStreetMap already exists.

They just need to do their part by contributing to it.

Google did that to me yesterday when I tried to check reviews for a place. I did not check the Google reviews. Sucks my nuts google

I still use gmail and youtube. Trying to slowly get off gmail. It's been difficult as I don't have the time to sit down and look through what I need to transfer over. I've already got a NorthMail address, so at least that's a step.

and Waze is still Israeli spyware.

have a look at streetcomplete, it turns the updates into a game

I'm jumping ship for comaps, it's FOSS, no data collection, uses Wikipedia for location descriptions, has an offline mode, and doesn't do weird shit like divert you from a highway to drive on gravel roads to circumvent a perfectly fine 5 mile stretch of highway

Gmail and Drive for work?

Oh boy..

No matter how much I contribute, OSM is so far behind google they're not even comparable in any way.

And yes, I do use OSM/CoMaps/Magic Earth/Organic. And I contribute.

Acting as if it's the user's fault these don't compete with Google is just blaming the user.

You should see what they did with reCaptcha. Today for the first time I got the popup telling me to scan a QR code with my phone in order to continue. Well, fuck that.

Except up-to-date opening hours, apparently

They probably don't care if you use a different service if you don't log in to use theirs. If you don't log in they can't easily monetize you by tracking your data and building a portfolio. Otherwise you use their resources at a cost and they don't make money.

So threatening to leave for other services isn't exactly a threat.

I have gmail forwarding my email to my new account outside of Google. I have a "Gmail" folder on my non-Google account where all these forwarded emails get dropped.

I have been updating my email address on these forwarded emails for over a year. I've had this gmail address since gmail started so it's taking some time. It is a process but I am winning.

For a long time google existed without an option to create an account

I have seen some funky trips in comaps as well tbh. But I suspect any map tool is going to get that. At least it gets my commute to work right, which google doesn't.

But there is nothing to update. They already did it all

yeah it was awhile back where my tablet would lose the directions thing with google maps once I was off wifie that drove me to organic maps.

the common alternative FOSS maps just don’t provide the same level of detail

Then I guess OP doesn't have any excuses. Or I guess you can use it as an excuse to see new places so you can map them, too.

Man, this is accurate, but I tested Mapquest recently. I like that I can make my position icon a cute little rainbow unicorn, but also it couldn't locate the second Walmart in town. I get the pharmacy at one and the tire place at the other. And the store itself for neither. Like, I really want to know the pharmacy hours here Mapquest.

They don't care, but in 10 to 20 years time they will hire consultants to figure out why their user base chose inferior products to their superior free service.

I also have everything forwarding to another account, with a rule to tag the ones sent to my gmail so that they're highlighted. It's a big task at first but just do a couple every now and then and eventually it'll be done.

There is two options: either you have a corporation so everything and they require a way to pay their employees (and most will want some profit), this is the Google way. Of course you can switch to an alternative of a less evil corporation, but you will still be part of that system. The other option is crowd sourced, where everyone who uses also provides a bit. If you use an app based on data from OpenStreetMap, you will find local information lacking. But the beauty is, you can easily contribute. I think Wikipedia is the biggest example of how this system can work. Personally I use CoMaps. Can recommend it, but there are similar options that are just as open source.

And owned by google to boot, no?

This trend is gaining traction. It stated with twitter, then other platforms followed, Reddit does it now too.

You can't monetize unlogged in traffic I guess.

It sounds dumb, but Google's directions handle traffic very well for the most part. If there's a lot of demand for a certain route, it will automatically send you through alternatives so as to not cause traffic jams. That perfectly fine 5 mile stretch of highway probably has a lot of people already being routed through it.

Sometimes it also just sends you to the wrong place or tries to tell you to make illegal maneuvers though.

I use Proton and can highly recommend. Others will recommend you alternatives, but one extra reason for Proton is they target actively gmail users and built a tool to make the switch easier: https://proton.me/blog/proton-mail-connect-gmail

In cases like this blame and fault are almost irrelevant, what is relevant is what do your actions lead to. I'm not arguing an individual can do everything when it comes to things like this, we as individuals have to pick our battles - but the people who choose not to fight any battle at all and stay with the status quo should understand they are part of the reason the status quo is maintained and are part of the reason enshittification is happening.

It's good that you understand not everybody can do what you do, but we shouldn't be giving everyone free passes and allow them to believe they have zero accountability.

Gonna leave this here: https://www.comaps.app/

They offer very cheap services (guess why) for small and medium businesses. Wouldn't recommend anyone to use Google, but I can get their low price is very attractive.

It is owned by System1 who is an ad arbitrage firm that buys cheap ads at one source (e.g Facebook) for a page containing expensive ads (e.g Google Ads) so be aware of that.

They still know who most users are even without a google login; they can monetize just fine.

Haha I wish

Pirating youtube is pretty doable right now. There's invidious which is just a mirror then there's ytdlp for people who fuck with command lines. Or Stacher if you don't

I work in 911 dispatch, we're not really supposed to log into our personal accounts on the work computers, there have been a couple incidents (not specifically in the 911 center but other parts of our county government) where people have gotten viruses and such from opening links in their personal emails on county computers.

A lot of us in dispatch make pretty heavy use of Google maps. When a caller doesn't know where they are and we're not getting a good location from their cellphone, we can sometimes see a lot of details on Google maps that we can't see on the maps on our dispatch software.

There have been a couple times a caller has described a house to me and a general area that it was in but not the exact address, but I was able to get that address from looking around on satellite view and street view.

Sometimes we can see businesses and other places on it that aren't in our system or come up as something slightly different, like maybe everyone calls a school "the Smith School," but the actual name of it, and how it's listed in our system is the "John Q Smith Preparatory Academy" so if I search in our system for "Smith School" I won't find it, but if I look on Google maps I might see that pop up.

There's cases where like if the call is on the border between 2 towns and I need know which department to dispatch, I can look on maps for little landmarks that probably wouldn't be listed in any map software so that I can ask something like "are you on the same side of the road as the house with a big statue on the front lawn, or are you across the street from that house?"

Point is, it's a very valuable tool for my job in situations that can actually be life-and-death sometimes, and since I can't log in to it at work, I worry about getting shut out from features I use or even out of the service entirely.

No, the detour took me off of a quiet highway on a flat stretch of road. I took a return trip on the same highway less than an hour later, and there was no backup to speak of

There's also our very own community here on lemmy, !CoMaps@sopuli.xyz

They want your data, and if you don’t give it to them by logging in, they’re cutting you off. Probably.

There's OpenStreetMap. I'm not saying that it's as suitable as Google Maps for you, but it's a possible option.

https://www.openstreetmap.org/

The're not a commercial service, and the database backing it is freely distributable, so it won't get cut off.

It doesn't have Google Street View, though, and attempts at reimplementing such a thing have been pretty weak, so if you need that functionality, won't help.

Really depends on location, because it's dependent on how people in an area act. If they're plugging things into it, then it can have a ton of data.

Why is it a map's responsibility to list restaurant hours?

The OP even said the restaurant has their own website where they list their hours. I'm fine with leaving it at that, personally.

It's sad to see how time and time again companies build up a big user base by being the best service out there, and then just assume that they'll be the market leaders forever and ever no matter how much they enshittify.

The amount of vendor lock-in with something like Google Maps is very close to zero.

I have tried open street maps it didn't even have my address correct. It was absolute trash. There are very few things that actually work and work well when you need them to work. I would never trust that service to work well. It relies far too much on individuals to fix everything wrong with it. I had to submit my correct address to it which took several weeks to correct. And that's just one address that I looked at that's a standard address no big deal shows correct on every other map out there but if I were trying to rely on that for life-saving services hell no.

Next gen911 is going to fix this I work for county making the maps for Newworld or whatever dispatch system you’re using. Soon the whole county will be running on NG911. You can look it up but it basically replaces using the old lookup your system currently uses that comes from a master list Verizon and att own.