[lurkerforawhile]

they have four trillion dollars buddy they'll be okay.

[lotsofpulp]

The price of the most recent transaction of a share times the number of outstanding shares is not equal to spendable cash.

[vovavili]

These are exactly the kind of companies that have enough data and analysis to avoid bleeding money.

[lurkerforawhile]

so externalizing environmental and social costs is fine, as long as the numbers are big enough?

[vovavili]

I am not sure how any of this follows.

[stackskipton]

They became big enough because they were free and had massive cash behind them to destroy all competition (Mapquest, Garmin and others)

Now they are this big, they have become quasi public record for many other organizations who rely on this data.

Since they want to keep costs low, if their data is wrong, it can have significant impacts on your life and getting someone to correct it is almost impossible.

[vovavili]

And that's why you want to start paying for GMaps?

[stackskipton]

Want to, not really. Want GMaps moved from Google? Yes. If it can stand on it's own free, fine whatever. If not and people need to be charged for it, fine.