[beefsack]

Regardless of the motivations behind doing this (cynics could easily suggest it is a direct attack on Google Maps) this is great news for both OSM and the broader mapping ecosystem.

The data OSM provides is immensely valuable and enables some really empowering applications.

[ggg9990]

Of course it’s an attack on Google Maps, and that’s a good thing. People should be happy to have Microsoft’s help in fighting Google because Google is much scarier than Microsoft these days.

[partiallypro]

Google is scarier than Microsoft was even in its peak. Google controls most of the world's information, can shape thoughts with search algorithms, can destroy businesses (including competitors) with changes in ad policies, bid processes and search algorithms. Microsoft at its peak could threaten suppliers and some competitors...Google can practically destroy any company/person in any vertical if it so chose.

[earenndil]

Aditionally, it's (mostly) possible to avoid contact with microsoft by simply not using their products. With google, you can't help their ads in webpages, their hosting the email or messaging services your friends use; if someone send me a docx file, I can open in libreoffice, if they send me a google doc, I can't avoid it.

[sangnoir]

> it's (mostly) possible to avoid contact with microsoft by simply not using their products

I don't know what your vocation is, but avoiding Windows, Office and/or Exchange is a choice a very large number of people cannot make.

[cptskippy]

My boss asked me if I'd played around with VS Code the other day. I said "are you thinking about switching us to Macs?"

grumble

[threatofrain]

Google's advantages seem brittle, as their moats aren't as concrete as Microsoft's, and their revenue sources aren't diversified at all. People could replace their relationship to Google far more easily than with Microsoft.

If ChromeOS doesn't take off, I wonder if Google could be temporarily locked out of mainstream desktops and laptops in the AI assistant race.

[yoz-y]

Hmm, this depends. Microsoft has windows and office but most of the business now happens in the cloud. I try to avoid using google product but were I an advertiser my only other option is facebook.

[esturk]

You mean like ISPs? Oh wait, it can't. Please stop throwing this impression of Google's invincibility around. You know there are forces that Google can't even come close to defeating.

[matte_black]

The sheep are afraid of the sheepdog because it looks too much like the wolf.

[TeMPOraL]

The sheep would do wise to remember that the sheepdog and the shepherd aren't good actors - the fate of the sheep is to be sheared and eaten.

[49bc]

> Google can practically destroy any company/person in any vertical if it so chose.

Yet they don't. So either they're not as scary as "Microsoft was even at its peak", or maybe they're not as powerful as you make them out to be.

[vezycash]

The key difference btw Google and Microsoft is this:

If MS harmed you, you'd know. If Google intends to harm you, it looks like a stroke of bad luck.

All they have to do is hide the tree (you the person they intend to harm) within the forest (thousands of other sites/businesses) affected by the same policy change.

You could go months without finding out. And if you ever do, it's extremely difficult to prove foul play.

[sgtmas2006]

Do we know this?

It is not possible truly to know one way or another at a complete level, although it is unlikely. Saying they are not this powerful is, well, simply not true. It is not possible without creating a huge skunk-works internal project binding people to secrecy.

Google doesn't have the power to bind people to secrecy in the same way that say, the CIA, FBI, or NSA do. It does not mean that they do not have the capability of doing these things.

[raesene9]

What makes you say they haven't? There have been many stories of search algorithm changes hurting businesses

http://www.smeinsider.com/2015/06/23/google-is-ruining-small...

for one

[rmc]

It's not new. MS allows the OSM community to trace from Bing aerial imagery since 2010! And from 2007 till 2011 Yahoo allowed tracing from their aerial imagery. These have been very very helpful to OSM.

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Bing_Maps https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Yahoo!_Aerial_Imagery