| Actually, w3w has localized their system for multiple languages. You can select a different language on their website. They have customers in several of the countries speaking those languages. You can trivially do distance calculation by using their algorithm (which works offline if you use their sdk) to get the coordinates. The DB space is completely irrelevant: this algorithm is intended for humans being able to memorize three words. So, not sure what you are going on about here. Again, they have paying customers that are getting value out of this. Hard to argue with that, which you seem to be attempting here. I'm not aware of a better solution that is usable by normal people. Good luck communicating a geohash to the emergency services. It's not going to be a thing as much as I like using them. Placekey seems one of their competitors but they don't produce human readable codes and they are US only. In any case, most people don't even know their latitude or longitude to any kind of precision. Coordinates are hard for people. Regarding the IP, they use a combination of patents (the algorithm) and copyright (the word list) to protect their IP. They built a customer base around this stuff and they are well within their rights to protect their own work, which is what they are doing. IP law is what it is and w3w is simply using that as it was intended (protecting IP). That's just normal behavior for VC funded startups. Try to get some IP through some honest work, protect it, build a business around it. They are not being patent trolls here. The way I see it, w3w has built their business without edge cases like in this article being a major obstacle to them. You could argue emergency services are important enough that they might want to improve their word list a bit. But still, it's not a basis for dismissing their business model, solution and general right to exist. IMHO they are a bit over valued at this point and a likely acquisition target for someone so the investors get their bail out. Their current strategy is a long term dead end from the point of view of people adopting this. The proprietary nature of their solution is an obstacle for that. Once patents expire, similar solutions might emerge with different word lists, numbers of words, etc. that are more successful. Alternatively, post acquihire, a visionary company might just use some more liberal licensing to make this a bit more attractive. |