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by swaranga 2056 days ago
I moved to USA from India and after the interstates, this is one of the top things I am jealous of since we don’t have a sane addressing system in India.

Only if you are from such a place you will have an idea how frustrating it is to explain to a delivery person how to reach your apartment. “Bro, come around behind the mall, proceed to the dead-end and then left and then to the right after the temple”. This is not even some small town in a remote place. This is Bangalore, where I lived for years near corporate offices. Sigh.
1 comments
gonzus 2055 days ago
Does something like Google Plus Code (https://maps.google.com/pluscodes/) help in this case? This sounds exactly like the use case they wanted to support (and that was supported by other systems prior to GPC), so I am curious if it, in fact, makes any difference on the ground.
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ssivark 2055 days ago
Interesting, apart from the problem that like any Google feature/product it will likely be abandoned, and then shut down in a few years screwing over anyone that actually depended on it :smh:
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Arcorann 2055 days ago
Plus Codes (or Open Location Codes) are simply mappings from latitude/longitude to an alphanumeric string [1], and there are open-source implementations in many languages [2], which means the effect of the project being abandoned would be limited.

[1] https://github.com/google/open-location-code/blob/master/doc...

[2] https://github.com/google/open-location-code

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signal11 2055 days ago
Indian food delivery and ride-hailing companies like Zomato and Ola don’t appear to support it yet (and training their delivery folk), sadly. I wish they would though — it would make life much easier. Most delivery people I’ve spoken to are unaware of the feature.

Also Google Maps in India has quite a bit of variance from “ground truth” so the phenomenon OP describes (of delivery folk calling you up every. single. time) is very real.

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swaranga 2055 days ago
It wouldn’t work in India in most cases. Most delivery person uses a motorbike for deliveries which I believe is not equipped with a goa device that they can refer to at all times during driving. Even if they have a smartphone and I send them a google maps link, they end up calling me several times throughout the delivery.
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