[Osmf-talk] What's our USP?

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 13.12.19 10:54, Darafei "Komяpa" Praliaskouski wrote:
> I'd like to confirm that need being
> covered is indeed *maps*. Maps that exist outside of normal corrupt
> structures.

You won't get those ("outside of ... corrupt structures") by asking a
business to create them for you though. Businesses are by definition
driven by a profit motive and if they "give" you anything then it is
going to be the cheapest possible thing that is good enough for them to
achieve the goal.

For example, if the business needs a routable road network they'll try
to pay a sweat-shop in a low-wage country to trace that (who cares for
road names, speed limits, or turn restrictions) rather than send people
to your city and do it properly.

If the business needs buildings to estimate where lots of potential
customers live, again, they will trace the buildings and not care for
addresses or map POIs that happen to be in the buildings which a mapper
would of course be able to record.

If the business wants their shops on the map, they will import the shops
but of course not care for the shop next door, and so on.

If you're extremely lucky, then the combination of all these various
business interests gives you something that is halfway usable (unless
you're a minority that isn't relevant for turning a profit, like e.g. a
wheelchair user). But one thing it is certainly not: "outside of normal
corrupt structures".

The great thing about OSM that it's a map made by the people, for the
people, and not a map where one party has to beg (or "incentivize")
another party to please make the map!

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"