Two big factors were that Google made itself an early mover in this space, and it made the product available for free.
In the world before Google Maps, maps were frightfully expensive, or tremendously outdated.
I worked for a company that subscribed to a digital mapping service. We paid large sums of money each year for the right to use the maps. In addition to having a dedicated terminal, we even had a full-time staffer whose job was to touch up the generated maps for our purposes.
Then Google bought Keyhole, and made all of its treasures available to the public for free.
It's like someone opened a bakery and gave away bread for free until all the other bakeries went out of business. A business model that drug dealers sometimes use.
Then the remaining Google bakery decided that the way it would make money from its bread monopoly is to collect personal data on everyone who eats bread, while pretending that the bread is available at no cost.
Two big factors were that Google made itself an early mover in this space, and it made the product available for free.
In the world before Google Maps, maps were frightfully expensive, or tremendously outdated.
I worked for a company that subscribed to a digital mapping service. We paid large sums of money each year for the right to use the maps. In addition to having a dedicated terminal, we even had a full-time staffer whose job was to touch up the generated maps for our purposes.
Then Google bought Keyhole, and made all of its treasures available to the public for free.
It's like someone opened a bakery and gave away bread for free until all the other bakeries went out of business. A business model that drug dealers sometimes use.
Then the remaining Google bakery decided that the way it would make money from its bread monopoly is to collect personal data on everyone who eats bread, while pretending that the bread is available at no cost.