It makes me sad that people are losing their jobs. Somewhere out there are real people with real families wondering what they’re going to do if they’re out of a job. It just sucks.
If google implemented the social aspects of Waze into maps it would be the ultimate maps app. I understand that the nature of google maps is different than Waze's, but maybe including a social mode in maps that shows all the information that Waze shows would make it a million times better.
They’re separate because Waze has a reputation of giving more “aggressive” routing, and has a social aspect to it. Stuff that really doesn’t belong in Google Maps.
Like making you take an extra 10 turns, take a longer route, and drive on too-narrow roads, to potentially save only several minutes of being stopped in traffic.
I use Waze but will absolutely not follow some of its more stupid routes.
I will happily spend an extra half a minute on a journey to not have to go through a bunch of winding side streets and then try and pull out onto a busy main road, rather than just staying on the main roads.
Waze's app is a lot more engaging and would be distracting for someone used to Google maps. Waze has, as a result managed to do this crowdsourcing and gamify the experience. I don't really think Google maps could try that without alienating a lot of people.
I've long wondered how much longer Google would maintain two different mapping apps. It's long seemed like Waze acted as a beta test of Google Maps experiments, but I think it's starting to outlive our digital overlords' usefulness