philgyford, 11 months ago

@adamgreenfield I can understand it’s usefulness but, as I'm sure others will say, it's not a good thing/company and I'm surprised you’re a fan! I keep hoping for its eventual demise.

jonty, 11 months ago

@philgyford @adamgreenfield If it was open source I wouldn't have as many problems with it, partially because some issues could be resolved, and partially because the vendor lock-in wouldn't be an issue.

But it's not, and they're litigious assholes who refuse to acknowledge or address any of the flaws with the system, and continue to quietly push it in domains where it is not fit for purpose.

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2019/03/why-bother-with-what-three-words/

https://cybergibbons.com/security-2/why-what3words-is-not-suitable-for-safety-critical-applications/

https://w3w.me.ss/

https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/30/what3words-legal-threat-whatfreewords/

adamgreenfield, 11 months ago

@philgyford @jonty Ahh well. I try not to trot out “this is why we can’t have nice things,” but, well…this is evidently why we can’t have nice things.

jonty, 11 months ago

@adamgreenfield @philgyford I keep hoping they'll go bankrupt so we can crowdfund to buy their IP and release it into the public domain

adamgreenfield, 11 months ago

@jonty @philgyford This is the best thing I’ve heard all day. Of course, it’s only eleven.

jonty, 11 months ago

@philgyford @adamgreenfield One day w3w will go bankrupt because they have no business model. On that day all w3w locations will no longer be resolvable unless you use a third party reverse engineered client that is at risk of being sued by whoever ends up with the IP next.

They have done their absolute best to scrub the wordlist and algorithm from the internet, people have had to work really hard to preserve it.

Edent, 11 months ago

@jonty @philgyford @adamgreenfield
Last year they had sales of less than half a million quid and losses of £44mn.
https://knowwhereconsulting.co.uk/blog/another-red-year-w3w/

jonty, 11 months ago

@Edent @philgyford @adamgreenfield That is so much worse than I realised

adamgreenfield, 11 months ago

@jonty @Edent @philgyford So, it is agreed? We buy this, and fold it into the Telegraph, which we’ve also just bought?

jonty, 11 months ago

@adamgreenfield @Edent @philgyford Absolutely, the media empire starts here

jonty, 11 months ago

@Edent @philgyford @adamgreenfield I just checked the most recent accounts for 2022 (published last month).

They're doing much better! £800k profit, and only £31m in losses!

They also somehow raised another £10m of investment.

mistertim, 11 months ago

@jonty @Edent @philgyford @adamgreenfield One positively dangerous aspect of it I noticed recently, if you live in bilingual part of the world: The 'three words' for the same place are completely different in the two languages:

W3W for the same location in castellano, with the completely different words "hagan firme dulzón" (they make hard sweetness)

philgyford, 11 months ago

@Edent @jonty @adamgreenfield Thank you all for doing a better job of this than I would have.

adamgreenfield, 11 months ago

@jonty @philgyford That’s shitty, yeah. It reminds me of Citymapper’s jerkass CEO.

otfrom, 11 months ago

@adamgreenfield just say you are going to start trolling people why don't you (I'll dig up the various "problems with what3words" if you like) :ablobcatheart:​

yaxu, 11 months ago

@otfrom @adamgreenfield Yep aside from any ethical issues, it works until it doesn't.. They didn't design it well and there's a lot of homophones etc. Definitely not suitable for emergency use, and generally unreliable for oral transmission. They used it to advertise the end of the queue for our dead queen and it didn't go well, lots of mistakes.

adamgreenfield, 11 months ago

@otfrom @yaxu Well fuck that sideways.