[Iulioh]

The problem is that these systems are so costly and hard to make that without a capital incentive no indipendent entity is going to make them and what entity do have an interest in making them as a "loss leader" if not monetized in any way (ads or paid product)?

Do we all jump on Bing maps?

Open street map is a second but still...

[walterbell]

> costly and hard to make

https://x.com/charliebilello/status/1953643549435527320

  Apple has bought back $704 billion in stock over the past 10 years, which is greater than the market cap of 488 companies in the S&P 500.

[Iulioh]

I don't see the correlation

[Tadpole9181]

Apple has been running maps for well over a decade without this. They are one of the most profitable businesses in history and have spent almost a trillion dollars in financial games to enrich stakeholders because they had so much cash to burn.

The idea that "poor little Apple is struggling without enshittifying to microptimize profit opportunities" is an utter joke.

[BobaFloutist]

I think they were talking about the challenge for a non Apple/Google competitor to emerge in this space with a comparable enough product to win real, meaningful marketshare.

Firefox's abysmal market share, despite being, for the average user, a strictly better experience, would incline me to agree.

[fsflover]

Open Street Map is superior than both megacorps' maps in many locations.

[BobaFloutist]

Firefox is superior to Chrome in many ways.

[FireBeyond]

So costly that Apple is not even able to make $200B/year profit (only $180B). While parroting "user first, no enshittified customer experiences".