[pj_mukh]

Anyone who had to take an Uber after they switched away from Google Maps and onto their in-house half-baked mapping/navigation solution knows this is a huge problem.

I'm assuming like all mapping solutions it'll get better but for now, it's just full of bad routes, over-optimizing turns, out-of-date detours (for MONTHS!) and non-sensical U-turns

[0xDEFC0DE]

Not to defend Uber/NIH syndrome, but if Google wanted to specifically charge Uber more for maps because of usage, could they legally do that?

Maybe the rewrites are risk management?

[Nextgrid]

They could just use a third-party (and at their scale, they can definitely negotiate a custom deal where they feed back usage data to improve the third-party’s service) or even use open source solutions like OpenStreetMaps. Even the latter (with the overhead of hosting it themselves) makes total sense at their scale.

[0xDEFC0DE]

That'd be in a contract though, so what if Google decided to not renew and only let Uber know like a month before the contract ended?

If these questions seem dumb it's because I know pretty little about legal battles in software.

[tomnipotent]

I'd wager this contract has a 90+ day termination notification requirement at a minimum.

[giancarlostoro]

Google increased maps cost for everybody though, not just Uber.

https://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/features/google-maps-apis-new-...

[0xDEFC0DE]

I'm asking whether only Uber could be charged more.

[anitil]

You've hit the nail on the head. Uber can't risk being one management decision from Google away from shutting down.

[baroffoos]

They are already forced to be like that by being in the app store.

[jen20]

Were they not recently embroiled in a lawsuit, too?