Why Google Maps Is The Most Important Tech Product Of The 2020s

I hope you enjoy this video essay deep dive in what the future is shaping up to be. I strongly believe AR will be the new main way we interface with technology in our everyday lives and mapping will play a key part in this shift. I tried to fit all the important things in the video, but there are other interesting aspects to cover such as MR vs. AR, enterprise devices such as Hololens and Magic leap 2, whether Google pushes for its 1st party app to dominate or for openly allowing to use their deep map and much more. I will eventually cover those in other videos.

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🖖 Hey! I'm Enrico and on this channel I go behind the scenes of tech. I'm a tech Product Manager, builder of digital stuff, YouTube aficionado and overall meme connoisseur. I am also a rare Italian who doesn’t know how to cook.

[caleballen]

I was interrailing in Europe a few months ago and the amount I relied on Google maps is scary to think about. I trusted it implicitly to guide me around and between 8 cities I didn't know anything about with Metros, buses and train timetables all running like clockwork. It's worrying to think that this incredible resource lies in the hands of one company.

[PhilfreezeCH]

Just a small correction/addendum:
A huge part of Google Maps data set is not (yet) extracted from images. Instead it comes from the OpenStreetMap project, which likely has even more data in it than Google Maps. The big task with OSM data is to make it presentable and check its validity (since it is user reported, errors can creep in rather easily). I am sure Google is using their image-data for this part already but still, most of the street paths and names or the company names and locations comes from OSM and national cartography agencies, not from Google itself.
Basically Google is in the business of enriching and verifying the map, not necessarily building it.
The enriching part is via combining different types (like public transport, car and pedestrian maps), linking it to other online data (like adding opening hours and links to businesses), providing better images and with that a nicer ‚feel‘ and probably most importantly, giving you access to probably the best path-finding algorithm.

[disco.jellyfish]

Honestly Google is just such a powerful product because of the massive amount of data they have. Google Maps is way more likely to bring you to the correct destination than any other navigation product avaliable to the public today. Apple Ways often just doesnt know about many remote places while google maps usually even brings you to those. Errors are extremely rare. So rare, they are even worth mentioning them on evening TV news shows.

[thefocuschic]

I still believe that AR is a "solution without a problem", but the mix with products with Google Maps might get a productive result. I hope to see more innovation in the following years.

Thank you for your content btw, it's surprinsingly good.

[nipunj]

Can't believe this channel has just 1.7k subscribers. Very thought-provoking content, Enrico! Excited to see your journey. Godspeed!

[timohelmers]

Well I gotta give it to you. That thumbnail change is what got me to click. I was like ChatGPT, 10 months ago? This guy must have been living in the future :D

[Poney]

About Google Glass: I've always thought that Google was unlucky to have worked on this in the late 2000s, when the eyewear fashion was invisible mounts, very thin frames, small and discrete glasses. They felt compelled to obey that trend, which resulted in an awkard product with very little battery life (less than 4 hours), and a very small display.
In the early-2010s, however, the fashion went back to big vintage frames, which is now much more friendly to wearable tech.

[robertvass]

Google maps is ridiculously powerful, I could go on road trips for months in Italy and Spain and all I had to use was google maps. I made about 3 wrong turns altogether which were all easy to correct. Finding literally anything with pictures and videos on google maps with instant navigation is so much better than looking for top 10 beaches or top 10 mountain tracks on various websites.

[Simboiss]

Right now, I'm having a hard time believing in augmented reality, or anything vaguely close to it, when my phone mixes up my city with a similar one the other side of the ocean, and then fails miserably at plotting a route.

[neostrix]

Really happy to follow your channel, great content! Thx for putting all the time in 🤞

[PhilfreezeCH]

4:55 I think they have been managed okay at best. It is clearly being managed with America-brain, meaning heavily influenced by their way of life.
In practice this means you are usually still better of using dedicated apps for public transit, mixed transit or biking. In all those categories Google Maps tends to disappoint and never really manages to integrate the data well and give me good recommendations. Usually they kinda work but clearly aren‘t the best choice.

[perfectionbox]

"With great power comes great responsibility."
"No. With great power comes great profit."

[davidecauti]

how much value in one video, keep it up!

[MetaverseAdventures]

The Metaverse includes all online social XR and is not just a VR thing. In fact, AR and VR are already starting to merge and in a few more product generations, it will just be one, light, easy to use pair of glasses or even just contacts for those who desire. Everyone will be wearing them by 2035/40 with the first people starting to wear in public in the next few years. And YES…I agree Google has a significant advantage here, but I foresee that gap being closed rather quickly once even a small percentage of the planet is wearing XR glasses that are also mapping their environments. We are going to get not only street view, but down the grocery isle level of detail too and all XR players with have a headset will be getting this data which will erode Googles advantage. I am an XR developer and have been intimately involved in this industry since 2013 with the DK1. The future is exciting and also a little scary.

[rioee]

Look, all we really want for 1st gen consumer smart glasses, is Google lens built into AR.
Also if you have never seen it deno•coil is pretty much the most accurate and interesting depiction of a post AR integration society. It's on Netflix.

[miname.]

Subscribed ur channel after watch this single video…keep going man.. good work

[GreenVibezIguanaDaddy]

While I agree the GMaps is important, I would argue its more of a 2010's tech product.

[jamesrevell]

I'm an OTR in the US. I use several GPS devices throughout my day because some are better than others. My "trucker" GPS is mainly to get me within a few miles of my final destination. It has the lowest accuracy and the routing is horrible. Sometimes it gives me routes hundreds of miles out of my way. I use Google Maps for the last mile because of its accuracy. The other day Google Maps was so wrong that I finally had to turn it off and rely on my other devices. I was in Beaumont TX and Google Maps was absolutely worthless. Taking me down wrong way roads and way off course. I couldn't believe it. I finally had to pull off the road and switch devices before Google Maps got me killed.

[jimmybuster]

this deserves a million views. very informative

[drwheis]

You truly are my favorite digital philosopher! Love it.