One shows only a few shops, often the ones that pay the most, the other shows the true number of different places in the area.
Another intepretation: one uses data to distinguish between popular and crappy stores.
I think google helps minimize potential distractions while driving, and usually if you zoom in farther it shows more of what’s in the area. Honestly though, which shops show up is already pretty far down the slippery slope into monetarily self-interested bias. I think it’d be nice if they favored the user’s preferences, but then there’s my data that I’d rather not be advertised to on. This enshittification sucks.
I don’t like that google selectively chooses to show certain businesses over others.
But at the same time the lower screenshot is just pure information overload, it has way too much going on for a casual map to use while walking around and that sort of thing.
Sort of, OSM doesn’t really have much to search for. For example if I search “gluten free lunch” google will search the reviews and menus, and is pretty decent at showing me options. OSM would not be able to return anything most likely.
True, but that’s because the Google ecosystem is much more than Geo data. I agree typing that into OSM search won’t have any effect, but with OSMand for example I can filter search results for glutenfree and it works (if the restaurants have that specific key). Less comfortable, but not impossible. Much more ‘problematic’ IMO is OSM missing the possibility to rate places and add photos of meals and menus.
Have a look at https://mapcomplete.org/glutenfree
@MangoPenguin @Sidyctism2 Google ecosystem aside, this could be solved partially by just having more POIs with tags (cuisine=Thai;gluten_free) or such.
Google still isn’t absolutely amazing at it, I regularly try to find dog friendly stuff via Google and fail, even though it searches reviews and the Q&A.
But metadata helps, always!
Overture POI could help with this too, not sure if gluten free but stuff like Halala and Vegetarian are restaurant categories for Overture POIs
WHAT? HOW DARE YOU INSULT OPENSTREETMAP, THE MOST USED DIGITAL MAP!
(In all seriousness, I wouldn’t be surprised that OSM is actually used the most, especially because it creeps into many other maps. But of course, this usage is spread over many apps and not a single advertising map product, where GMaps is undoubtly the biggest one)
