Do it
Scenic route
Fun fact: Google Maps shows alternative routes if businesses along that way pay them money.
It even distracts you with sponsored pop-up ads while driving.
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-maps-add-stop-ads-37683.html
Unrelated to anything in this topic but I grew up within the confines of this map view. It’s nuts to me that you posted it and I stumbled across the discussion to see it.
Yeah, it’s been going on for probably close to 2 years now. I got this lovely scenic route option heading home the other day. I’ve never taken any route home other than the main road, so I have no idea why tf it suddenly thought I needed to take my little hatchback 4x4’ing
Why are you still using navigation to get home after two years? You haven’t learned the route yet?
For me it’s for traffic. There’s about 4 major routes I can take between my home and office, and with different traffic changes (wrecks, construction, conventions, etc) the difference between them can be over an hour.
It’s why I can’t use Organic Maps despite being a contributor to OSM.
I use it for the same reason, getting traffic advice and avoid queues.
It can tell us when traffic is backed up on a route. I of course know my work route by memory, including 5-6 route changes I could take. Though, why would I take those changes unless I know ahead of time I needed to? Using navigation can tell us problems on the route, whether or not we can go around effectively, or whether or not we should just let someone expecting us earlier how late well probably be.
Navigation provided by https://neal.fun/internet-roadtrip/
Well, that’s for taking that hour from me
My understanding is that it always tries to give you 2-3 route options. It defaults to what it thinks is the shortest, but it gives you a couple of options that are slightly longer. You might prefer those other options for various reasons.
But if there aren’t a whole lot of altenate options, the 2-3 options for slightly longer routes might include “ridiculous” things like this. It doesn’t know. It wouldn’t know why you wouldn’t always want the shortest route, but of course as humans, we have preferences and knowlege Maps doesn’t have.
Google Maps has been doing a lot of weird shit lately. I recently went on a road trip, going to a place I hit every year, taking my regular toll-less route, which is mostly 95.
G-Maps kept trying me to take new routes, which had tolls, and took LONGER. It tried to derail me at least a half dozen times, just changing my route without my consent. I had to stay on it every minute, even though I was driving.
I came to the conclusion that Google is cutting deals with states to shift people to toll roads, even if it takes longer. Probably getting a cut of the tolls. So it doesn’t matter which route you want to take, based on less mileage or fastest, they are going to prioritize the route that makes them the most money.
On the way back, I left late, after my event. I expected to drive for a couple of hours, take a nap, and finish. After a few hours, I realized that even though I had put my home address in, like I had a million times before, G-Maps decided I must mean a similar address in a different STATE, and in my tiredness, I didn’t realize it until I was crossing the border into the wrong state. I had to backtrack, and all that time was wasted.
What the fuck is Google Maps doing? That was just one trip. I’ve learned to stay on top of G-Maps. You can’t trust them at all.
I’m willing to bet that sometime between last year and now, an LLM got involved.
I can see AI being useful in calculating more accurate ETAs and such, but this seemed like they’ve been tasked to direct traffic to toll roads.
If AI is going to be involved, I don’t need it to be smart for me, I need it to be efficient.
They have also started showing “sponsored” locations as the first search result, often being ridiculously inconvenient and not at all what was searched for. For example I went to look for the Costco near me, and the first result was a Target nearly 20 miles away.
The Sponsored behavior is Google gaming their own ads business. Yesterday I searched “Lowe’s” and it shows two results for the same location, one sponsored above and the regular listing below it.
that and the random ad shit popping up on the map are turning me off of Google maps. I’m not there yet… but I’m close
It’s been on a steady decline for at least 5 years now imo, ever since they introduced “fuel efficient paths” it kept choosing small roads with lots of stopping and starting at intersections instead of the bigger roadways where you can hold a constant speed… how that is more fuel efficient beats me
I wonder if they just go off speed limits and don’t know or factor in that the stop signs exist
Geez, I hate it when they route you down those little back roads, where you have to watch for some poorly marked turn every 4 miles. It was exactly one of those stupid country roads where I hit a deer for the only time in my life, thanks to Google. Just put me on a highway, where I can zone out to some Pink Floyd and cruise.
It can be, if you’re driving a non-ICE car and plan your driving. But still usually not worth it.
I’ve been using CoMaps for a few months and I love it. No google or apple bullshit
My only problem with CoMaps is that it doesn’t display the target address at the end, and navigates to a “block” of addresses. I do a lot of delivery for work, so no I’m afraid I do not readily know which address I’m going to and cannot look it up while driving. The navigation works well, though.
Looks promising, I’ll give it a try. I don’t mind ditching Google.
Bro. That last part would have me livid. I can feel my blood boiling from that. I have made trips across states with only enough money for gas to get where I needed to be…if Google had did something like that to me during those times I’d be fucked without a paddle.
I had it happen this weekend. Put in an address for an estate sale about 20 minutes away and it decided to give me directions to an address 20 hours away.
Yeah, I figured I’d get half way home, take a nap for a few hours and finish in the morning. Instead, I just took a nap, and did pretty much the entire trip in one shot.
It also meant that I hit a bad accident that caused about a 2 hour slow down, that I would have missed if I had been correctly navigated the night before. So my 5 hour trip ended up taking about 10 hours. Pissed me off for the entire trip.
I was on holidays last month and it really seemed to struggle on a number of occasions to give a decent result for”supermarket”, with some of the top results being thousands of kilometres away.
Once I’ve got a path plotted, I switch on airplane mode so Google Maps can’t throw me any curveballs.
Then you lose traffic updates. I use Wayze, and it suddenly switched and told me to take a turn and I followed it and neatly circumvented a jacknifed truck and probably a big delay.
I don’t want traffic updates. They keep changing my route to a complicated one I didn’t want, to save like 1 minute in theory. If I could change it to opt-in route suggestions instead of opt-out route switcheroos, then I might like that feature. I am not available to use the phone while I am driving the car.
I loved my old standalone GPS device until it was stolen.
the main reason I use navigation is for traffic, though
but if you know that’s not going to be a concern, absolutely a good idea
I want its opinion on traffic once - before I leave - and that’s it. Once I’m on the road, I absolutely do not want to hear its suggestion to change 3 lanes to catch this next exit.
Where I live, traffic advice can regularly save 20+ minutes driving. My morning commute is wack.
Over a year ago a new asian grocery store opened in my hometown and no matter how much I zoom on the map it just refuses to show up. It has 4.9 and 24 reviews yet still nothing, only by searching can you find it
I set mine to avoid avoid tolls permanently.
After that, so did I. It used to be okay, you’d mark your route with no tolls, and that would be the end of it. Now they take it as a mild preference, because they have this expensive toll road for you, and it only costs $8 to go an extra 60 miles.
That’s atrocious.
I mean… it’s not wrong. That IS 8 minutes slower.
I have ‘avoid tolls’ turned on. I put in a trip yesterday that took me through a toll tunnel, and gave me no other option. You really need to check it’s work before following it.
Some lovely homes for sale in that neighborhood.
Google suggests slower alternative paths, so it can collect more local data from the region through your phone or car.
EDIT: I’m a dum dum.
I use and routinely contribute to OSM, and I hate Google Maps both ethically and because the actual underlying map is just half-baked.
This is a ridiculous explanation for why GMaps suggests nominally slower routes alongside the main one. What’s happening in the OP image is clearly a bug, not Google begging you to pretty please do 8 superfluous minutes of data collection for them.
- Some people have areas they’re more comfortable with. For example, some people are afraid of driving on a bustling highway or through a claustrophobic downtown. Alternative routes make it more likely that this person can forgo a few minutes in favor of something more comfortable.
- The router isn’t omniscient. Sometimes the human using the router knows more about local conditions than the router itself does, e.g. that a road it’s taking you through has a problem. Alternative routes again make it more likely that you give the user a satisfactory route.
This comment is just fucking stupid and based on nothing when a much more cogent explanation exists. I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that you travel farther, but seriously? Show any evidence at all that this is why it performs this extremely normal and explicable routing operation.
This is a joke comment posted in shitpost cpmmunity. Dont take it seriously.
At least one person believed the “joke comment”
People here have said dumber things in earnest.
Oh, shit. I’m sorry. I’ve heard some wild takes on Lemmy lately, but I still shouldn’t have assumed.
But now I still have to disagree; this is part of a worldwide psychological experiment for Google to learn about users’ willingness to do useless work.
Omfg really???
Literally every thing they do is to gather additional data.
Bruh comments and 56 seconds later deletes their account?
How often can I delete my account immediately after posting?
It’s a mystery!
(or maybe I haxed the Gibson)
Clever and hilarious. Almost reminds me of old IRC shenanigans. :)
I was surprised they didn’t have a restriction on the display names for something like this.
I see emoji are supported. I shall have to try more shenanigans. Maybe zalgo. lol
stops using service
additional data that you stopped using
rrreeeeeeeeeeeee
Yeah I’ve personally seen it do shit like that a few times. Its been a bug for awhile, don’t know if its fixed or not but I’m on CoMaps now and actively contributing to OSM
I’d love to figure out some improvement to CoMaps cycling directions, although I’m starting to use it more as a digital map and doing my own route planning. Both CoMaps and Google make some bizarre routing choices but this is a place where Co Maps has space to really excel. Co Maps might already be slightly better in some regards but Google is usually workable and CM’s route is 90% better and 10% baffling utter nonsense. The goog has absolutely been responsible for multiple occasions where I’ve said fuck no and ended up riding on the sidewalk though.
