Google Decides to Monetize Maps - <AUTHOR> https://adage.com/article/digital/google-flips-switch-its-next-big-money-maker-maps/2163976 <comment><USER3> I can't stress enough how much of a bad idea this is. I was stunned when a few days ago I was looking up something on Google Maps and started seeing advertised locations/suggestions.

Even though I love the product and have been a fan of Google products for the longest time, their current strategy of monetizing everything they can is very off putting. The direction Chrome is taking is also concerning.

Don't know what really is going on at Google at the higher levels, but from an outsider's perspective is seems like they are aggressively trying to grow even more. Maybe to raise stock price? But to invest in what? Maybe to compete with Apple and Amazon? I can't be the only one who thinks it all seems odd - <USER2> from "don't be evil" to shutting down a massive number of projects with a lot of potential (e.g. Inbox, Fiber)...

Don't mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but looking at the bigger picture, it looks like Google's strategy is going through some changes and I'm not convinced this would play out well for them in the end.

<comment><USER4> Why should they offer a free maps service? They are a business with shareholder responsibilities, not a charity, and maps must cost them a ton of money to operate.

<comment><USER5> > _Why should they offer a free maps service?_

The shouldn't. They should be forced to close, and Maps and Search should be provided by a non-profit, internationally controlled (UN etc), organization, not a for-profit company.

That's my opinion of what would be best. Some services (like "indexing the world's knowledge") are too important to be left to private interests and be monetized via ads...

<comment><USER6> Forced to close? Why? That's a terrible authoritarian idea.

The only solution is more competition, not less. Trying to limit who can do what has only ever led to worse outcomes. There's nothing stopping a non- profit group from creating maps today if they wanted to.

<comment><USER5> > _Forced to close? Why? That 's a terrible authoritarian idea._

I don't believe "authoritarian" applies to companies. If anything corporatism is authoritarian.

<comment><USER6> What exactly does "force to close" mean and how does it work in a free-market capitalist society then?

If there are valid regulations to follow then sure but that's not what the parent comment seems to be suggesting.

<comment><USER5> > _What exactly does "force to close" mean and how does it work in a free- > market capitalist society then?_

There's no "free-market capitalist society". Just a really-existing capitalist society (like "really-existing socialism" which touted one set of values, but practiced another), that sells to people the lie that markets are (and can be) free, when they aren't in most ways that matters.

<comment><USER6> This is a pedantic dead-end. The market is free enough. Regulation is not a problem, as already stated, provided the legislature is looking out for citizens and making the proper laws.

None of that has to do with Google being "forced to close" its Maps just because you don't like ads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Our Google Maps bill went from ~$100k per year to $380k per year as a result of these changes. Needless to say, we're moving over to Mapbox.

What Google seems to miss is how this will affect customers' receptiveness to other Google products in the long-term. Having pulled the rug from under us once, there's no way we could consider e.g. a migration to Cloud in case the same happened again (where moving to a different provider would be far more painful).

<comment><USER8> I agree. I get that when you build your business around someone else's API that you are responsible for any changes and you should be prepared when business models change, but this would be analogous to milk prices going from $1/pint to $3.80/pint.

A 280% increase in pricing after you've gained dominance in market share is a tough pill to swallow and left a really bad taste in developer's mouths.

I too have moved on to Mapbox, and I suspect the OSM group was thrilled at the changes since now their mapping efforts probably increased tremendously. We're probably going to roll our own map tile servers based on OSM since Mapbox as well is pricey, but not Google Maps pricey.

<comment><USER9> Mapbox actually fired the majority of the people they were paying to work on OSM a few months ago [1]. I don't really know why, and it seems like a really odd decision (unless maybe they're developing their own non OSM-based map), but if anyone knows why I'd love to find out.

[1] Compare [https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Mapbox&diff...](https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Mapbox&diff=prev&oldid=1638241#Current_Data_Team_members) to the current list: [https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mapbox#Mapbox_Data_Team](https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mapbox#Mapbox_Data_Team)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One of my absolute favorite things about switching to iOS is how minimalist Apple Maps is. No more nagging "suggested businesses" (ads), no more promoted locations, no more prompts to rate or tag things. Just a map, a search field, and sometimes a subtle prompt for directions to a location I actually go to on a regular basis. I love apps that aren't constantly trying to sell me things. Unfortunately they feel almost alien in today's world.

</comment><comment><USER11> I stopped using Google Maps a few years back. I received a notification on my phone that a store I was near was having a sale. It was clear that something was leaking my location, and that was being used to push ads to me through Android itself.

A little investigation revealed that the culprit was Google Maps. I uninstalled it at that point and never looked back.

<comment><USER12> So what do you use now

<comment><USER13> Check out maps.me for iOS and Android -> Open source, uses OpenStreetMap data (you can fix it!), offline maps with regular updates.

<comment><USER14> Ugh. In it's core Maps.me might be a good app. But it's sooo full of tracking stuff [1]. And I'm not even sure exodus catches all of them :-/.

There's a fork on F-Droid just called Maps, which removes all those trackers and works really well. [2] Unfortunately there's currently an issue with downloading the maps data, which makes the app currently unusable without manual workarounds. [3]

The other option would be OSMAnd[4], which is a great app but maybe not quite as user-friendly as maps.me/maps when initally getting started with it.

[1] [https://reports.exodus- privacy.eu.org/en/reports/search/com....](https://reports.exodus- privacy.eu.org/en/reports/search/com.mapswithme.maps.pro/) [2] [https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.axet.maps/](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.axet.maps/) [3] [https://gitlab.com/axet/omim/issues/78](https://gitlab.com/axet/omim/issues/78) [4] [https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.osmand.plus/](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.osmand.plus/)

<comment><USER15> Off-topic, but this was my first time hearing about Exodus and I spent quite a bit of time on there. How is it possible that Facebook has zero trackers? [https://reports.exodus- privacy.eu.org/en/reports/71538/](https://reports.exodus- privacy.eu.org/en/reports/71538/)

<comment><USER16> Everything that happens in your Facebook app is saved directly into the Facebook infrastructure. They don't leak it to other companies, they just own it themselves.

For those other apps, they leak the tracking to 3rd party services. That's what those trackers are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Google is really leaving the door open here for Apple to step in and offer a services bundle with a monthly fee that doesn't involve stuffing advertising into every nook and cranny of the user experience.

I generally prefer Google's services to Apple's but there might be a tipping point soon where I'm willing to sacrifice some features in exchange for a generally less creepy product.

<comment><USER18> You are assuming people would pay for an ad free GMAPS. Google tried this with YouTube Red. It doesn't work.

Apple users may be willing to pay for apps, Android users don't swing that way.

<comment><USER17> Ad free won't be enough. I predict there will be some kind of monthly bundle that includes a lot of different services. News, music, video and premium features on top of things like maps. Getting people to pay small amounts for a bunch of individual services is harder than charging them one lump sum per month for everything.

<comment><USER19> We can imagine something like 'an iPhone experience' pack for Android, and it's technically feasible - and may attract some attention from the customers.

But the question is - if you could get 'a pretty much iPhone' in your $200 Android for a couple of bucks a month, why would you ever buy an actual iPhone for $1000?

<comment><USER20> \- Better battery life (if you disable background app refresh).

\- Unified and consistent UI (subjective but I like it).

\- No ads or privacy threats in general unless you try really hard to make them work on your iDevice.

\- Guaranteed OS updates for 5+ years.

I'm probably forgetting some more.

An "iPhone experience" on an Android won't be even close to an iPhone. It could be used as a tease to prompt people to switch to an iPhone, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Google tracks your exact location every few seconds. They know which stores you visit, which restaurants you frequent, which friends you spend the most time with, how often you go to the gym, who you're sleeping with and much more. The targeted advertising and surveillance capabilities that are possible as a result of this level of data collection are absolutely terrifying.

<comment><USER22> Is this assuming you have GPS on all the time or are you saying they're actively tracking everyone's locations using other means as well?

<comment><USER11> Google does not rely solely (or even primarily) on GPS for its location tracking. It also uses methods like triangulating based on what WiFi APs your device can see.

<comment><USER22> source please?

<comment><USER23> Any Android phone with semi-recent Android version.

Here's the disclaimer from my phone: "Location may use sources like GPS, Wi- Fi, mobile networks, and sensors to help estimate your device's location. Google may collection location data periodically and use this data in an anonymous way to improve location accuracy and location-based services."

They have had similar-worded ones for a while now.

IIRC basically if the phone has GPS enabled it'll upload the list of visible APs from that location, so they can use that as an estimate for when a phone without GPS is nearby.

<comment><USER11> Yes. They publish that online, too, as part of their privacy policy: [https://policies.google.com/privacy](https://policies.google.com/privacy)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > Before the changes, Owczarek's startup got 750,000 free map views a month > and then was charged 50 cents for every 1,000 views on top of that. Then > Google started charging after 30,000 views and the cost was $7 per 1,000 > views. His costs jumped from nothing to $5,000 a month.

 _Ouch_. How could that possibly be worth it? Are they just trying to squeeze money out of businesses that are already locked into the Maps API? It seems hard to believe that your average startup that needs a map widget (like, for food or pharmacy delivery) would go with Maps instead of OpenStreetMap at that price level.

<comment><USER25> Although I appreciate the effort that has gone into and continues to go into OpenStreetMap the reality is that their data set is still pretty poor in comparison to Google Maps. I would not want to create a delivery business that depended upon it for success.

Just last month I found myself in need of a source of map data for a personal use application and thought of OpenStreetMap which led me to looking up my home address. Unfortunately I couldn't find my address by searching, so I zoomed in on my neighborhood. About 50% of the street names in my neighborhood were incorrect, so I spent time correcting them. The last time I had visited OpenStreetMap was about 4 years prior. On that visit about 1/3rd of the streets in my then neighborhood didn't appear.

<comment><USER26> Guessing you're American? OSM is very often better than Google in Europe and other parts of the world. It's spottier in the US.

<comment><USER14> Agreed on that. Although in Canada the OSM data seemed really, really good when it came to national parks and trails. Not so much inside Vancouver. (Still enough for navigation by car and on foot, but finding addresses was a major PITA.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Maps has been awful and getting worse for a long time.

If it's not routing me 25+ miles further to save "1 minute" (really a multi- minute slowdown in the 90th percentile) then its failing to give comprehensible directions in order to interpose business names.

Maybe the monetization is finally makes competing with it attractive enough.

<comment><USER28> And the app has become absolutely atrocious performance-wise. It used to load nearly immediately, but starting ~1.5 years ago I began noticing extreme slowdowns. Now it's barely functional for me. Every part of the UI is appallingly unresponsive -- taps that take 5 seconds to register, hitches in animation, etc. From tapping on the icon to being able to get underway (including typing in an address) used to be about five seconds or less. Now it's upwards of thirty.

This coming change to their monetization (really? mining our location data isn't enough?) is just going to be the final impetus I need to find some other solution.

<comment><USER29> On my old iPhone the performance is still fine, but the volume controls have been broken for ages. Basically you can only change the volume while it is speaking (otherwise it changes the ringer volume). So you have to guess when the phone is speaking and then smash the volume up button in the hopes that you guessed correctly. And of course you have to do this blind because you're driving at the time to trigger the turn prompt. Very annoying.

<comment><USER30> Settings -> Sounds & Haptics -> Change With Buttons: OFF. Now the volume controls will only ever change the audio volume and never the ringer volume.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Meanwhile... MapKit.js has "a free daily limit of 250,000 map views and 25,000 service calls" [https://developer.apple.com/maps/mapkitjs/](https://developer.apple.com/maps/mapkitjs/)

<comment><USER32> If I can't use it on the desktop, though, it's not much good to me.

Edited to answer daveidol's question due to ridiculous HN rate-limiting: Apple doesn't license Apple Maps for anything other than their own mobile platforms as far as I can tell. It can't be used as a general-purpose Google Maps replacement.

<comment><USER33> DuckDuckGo have switched to Apple Maps as their mapping solution.

<comment><USER32> I only see Bing Maps, Google Maps, HERE, and OSM...?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> May OpenStreetMap prevail!

<comment><USER35> I wish there was an app using OSM that had at least some usability and design. I tried some but had to quit out frustration.

<comment><USER36> Sometimes you have to sacrifice usability for something more important. AMP is a good example. Users love it. It's more usable, but HN thinks it's evil.

<comment><USER11> > Users love it. It's more usable

Not all users. I hate it, and I don't really find it more usable. I find it more limiting.

The complaints about AMP are not unique to HN, either. I see them in all sorts of other places.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> A few months ago, I noticed navigaton saying thing like "take the next right, after Key Bank". Clearly an ad, as there is nothing ambiguous about the turn. Haven't seen it mentioned by anyone else, am I the only one?

<comment><USER38> It's not an ad¹. A lot of humans navigate that way, for many reasons. Google has done research on that through the years. Landmarks might be easier to spot and are an useful confirmation that you got the turn right. Do you never ask yourself if you just made a mistake? Perhaps you got distracted by a passenger, another vehicle or a pedestrian.

The street name you are turning onto might be not as visible because the sign is small, covered by a large truck or not well lit at night. Key Bank is probably harder to miss.

Or there might be no street name at all, which is often the case in places like India, where Google has been testing this for many years. In that case you have no choice but to use landmarks.

¹Or, at least, one that you can purchase now. It might happen in the future, but of course they'd have to be careful when rolling this out. Imagine if they used a business that is not very distinguishable and thus not a real landmark. That would diminish Maps' utility.

<comment><USER39> I remember reading a pop-sci article many years ago about a study that found women were better at navigating by landmark and men were better at more abstract directions like maps and compass directions, with gay men being good at both.

So while this is annoying for me it could be great for the other 50% of the population, would be nice if it was optional.

<comment><USER38> I found in my own amateur UX studies that there are drivers who hear "in a quarter mile, turn right" and don't know how far that is, even after having heard that prompt thousands of times. You'd think that after a while they'd build a mental model of the distance. Instead, they seem to just tune out the "in a quarter mile". This is one of the classes of users for which products need to be designed. (I have similar problems with people's heights.)

Also, as a passenger it's fairly easy to say "turn in five blocks" and track how many blocks are left, maybe even while holding a conversation. For drivers, that seems more difficult, probably due to cognitive overload, unless it's just a couple of blocks. And I've noticed that some drivers react to that kind of direction by scanning the view and quickly translating the number of blocks to a landmark.

<comment><USER40> Oh yeah I love when people measure turns by the number of intersections to pass. Things like quarter mile or 1000 ft are hot garbage for me in terms of understanding how close I am to needing to turn, since it depends a lot on how fast I'm moving.

<comment><USER41> Yeah, I don't understand why mapping software doesn't just say:

* after the next 2 intersections, turn right

* after the next intersection, turn right

* turn right at the next intersection

* TURN RIGHT NOW

* you missed the turn right, ....

Other huge annoyances:

\- Not telling you which lane it is optimal to stay on on multilane roads

\- Not telling you which road signs to follow outside urban centers via voice

\- Not telling you about speed limit changes

In general, I find the guidance to be barely usable instead of being excellent as it could be

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I guess that explains why Google started nudging people to log in when using the iOS maps app.

They made it really hard to click through and use it without an account recently. Between that and that story about giving map data to LEAs[1] I removed it from my phone entirely.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/13/technology/google- sensorv...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/13/technology/google-sensorvault- location-tracking.html)

</comment><comment><USER43> The cookie popup for this site... Which selection means No and which means Yes?

Also, after submitting my "preferences", I actually got to watch a custom progress meter creep thru the %s until I gave up around 80.

What a fucking disaster our modern internet is.

<comment><USER44> Install NoScript. The web gets 100x more usable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I think this is taken word-for-word from this Bloomberg piece: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-10/google- fl...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-10/google-flips-the- switch-on-its-next-big-money-maker-maps)

<comment><USER46> It's a syndicated article

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> This article is rather confused about the Google Maps service for users and for developers/webmasters.

They aren't starting to show ads in Google Maps because they have been doing that for a long time. They just started limiting the free service for developers a few months ago.

</comment><comment><USER48> I think this is pretty ok news: if Maps gets too annoying to use an increasing amount of people will start using alternatives, which will get better because of this, and in the end it will make it easier to live a Google-free life.

</comment><comment><USER49> A good reason to look at alternatives.

</comment><comment><USER50> It was a mistake to let so many basic reference sources become ad-supported. The goals of hosting ads and hosting trustworthy reference information are diametrically opposed.

</comment><comment><USER51> The problem I have with Maps is not the eventual monetization (By ads?), but how much Google sucks at doing that in a non disruptive way; not to mention I'm constantly arguing with the app as what is the best path, but I digress.

If they are to monetize it, they should take a hint from Waze (That, funnily enough, was bought by Google few tears ago) as to how do in map advertizing right.

They also have a lot of missed oportunities: The very few times I had to search something when using the app (Be it having to rush to a gas station, or in desperately need of an ATM) Maps has failed miserably.

Finaly, these apps are optimized for "First World" environments, and they also fail just as miserably in other places (Or other dimensions, as the one my country, Argentina, seems to be in)

<comment><USER52> Waze has the dumbest ads. Like I'm not going to stop at a KFC or grocery store in the middle of a roadtrip. Why would I buy groceries now and how in the world would I eat fried chicken and drive?

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Great. I stopped using Google Maps the moment I bought my IPhone. Unfortunately, it seems I'm in the minority when I say I get a better experience with Apple Maps. Apple Maps with carplay for the past year have been miles ahead of Google maps with Android Auto on all accounts for my trips. I was skeptical at first but I was never rerouted on weird residential neighborhoods / state highways or switch 3 freeways to shave off a minute of my trip, very accurate estimating traffic and transit time, etc... Keep in mind, I was also a huge fan of the Zune.

<comment><USER54> Apple's coverage is spotty; quite good in many major cities and certain less urban environments, but there are vast areas where its coverage is pretty sketchy.

Like you I mostly use it in areas of good coverage and think it's great. But some places I'm SOL and have to switch to google as a fallback.

<comment><USER53> That may be the case. My trips have mostly been around the west coast high density areas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Think about those who wish to start new business? Why? Because of money! Google is doing the same thing, growing Growing, utilizing every small space that Google occupies, earning money from it. Why Not!

<comment><USER56> Some businesses make the world better. Some businesses make the world worse. Let's not pretend that the two are the same.

<comment><USER57> Are you trying to imply that Google and/or Google Maps have made the world worse?

<comment><USER56> Are you trying to imply that adtech has made the world better? Are you trying to erase the difference between _mapmaking_ and _tracked advertising_? My eyes are about to fall out the back of my head, I'm rolling them so hard.

Google's core business is tracking you and shoveling ads at you. Every time they pollute one of their side hobbies with their core business, it makes that side hobby worse and worse for the world. Search, mail, news, I can go on.

<comment><USER57> You dodged my question, but I'm happy to answer yours. I do think that advertising has made the world better. A majority of the content on the internet is viable because of it.

<comment><USER56> > _I do think that advertising has made the world better. A majority of the > content on the internet is viable because of it._

AKA the "harmful behavior is ok when it's profitable" theory. I don't agree.

<comment><USER58> Would you rather have every website prompt you with a paywall instead because that is the only other profitable solution I can think of.

<comment><USER56> You are either ignoring the context of this subthread or agreeing with it. I'll remind you: ashishmalik says "Everything is ok because money!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Google already extracts a lot of hard, quantifiable value from Maps, partly in the form of valuable data, but also including ads and other promotions.

This article is about developer pricing for the Maps API. The article doesn't really delve into _why_ Google is squeezing more money out of small app developers. The only plausible thing I can think of is to prevent losing ad revenue to apps that don't include promotions, but that seems like a stretch.

</comment><comment><USER60> I only have Google Maps on my phone because I am location sharing with my family. Is there an alternative? I will gladly uninstall it then.

<comment><USER61> There are always alternatives. For Maps, check out

.) OsmAnd ([https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.osmand](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.osmand))

.) MAPS.ME ([https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mapswithme...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mapswithme.maps.pro))

For other alternatives to avoid getting your habits turned into money by big companies, check out [https://ethical.net/](https://ethical.net/)

<comment><USER62> I am not aware of a live location sharing function in OsmAnd.

<comment><USER14> There's this: [https://osmand.net/blog/osmand-telegram- released](https://osmand.net/blog/osmand-telegram-released)

But I guess at that point you can just use Telegram for location sharing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> > "...You don't expect them to pull the carpet from beneath you..."

Ah, yes, yes I do.

I work in an agency doing client website development and Google's recent price change for map services caused us to look elsewhere - abruptly. We're all about MapBox now - Google Maps has become too expensive.

</comment><comment><USER64> I stopped using google maps when they tried to force me to turn history on to update my home address.

</comment><comment><USER65> Does this apply to users who are logged in with a G Suite account?

I pay Google $12/month for services and although I am happy enough with their combined product right now, I have an easy migration path away from G Suite if that changes.

</comment><comment><USER66> Maybe they are trying to move away from advertising supported "freeware" model. Charge directly for things at point of use.

</comment><comment><USER67> I'd be happy to do a one time purchase for a permanently ad-free maps experience but I doubt Google would offer that. I stayed on an old version of maps for years after Google crippled functionality by combining Navigation and Maps into a single app, I'll be happy to do it again to avoid ads.

</comment><comment><USER68> Gosh, this could be risky for Google. But it was always going to be inevitable.

</comment><comment><USER69> Suddenly I'm fine with Apple Maps.

</comment><comment><USER70> More?

</comment><comment><USER71> Oh, what a surprise, not.

It is pretty hard not to see this coming with Google's falling margins on search advertising. Let's review how things have gone for Google over the last 10 years.

2009 the big mortgage recession hits and Google, like everyone else, sees businesses suddenly cut back on what they are willing to spend on internet advertising. As Google's CPC metric begins to free fall after years of growing or holding steady, Google sees the core metric of the only business they have that makes money at the margins they need to exist, well its dying.

In response they start by buying more traffic. This means they start paying third parties to send traffic that includes a search to Google so that Google can put ads on it. Sometimes that means paying a browser company to send search your way, sometimes it means paying a competitor with a smart phone offering to send the search traffic it generates to Google rather than an upstart. Importantly, that upstart (Bing) is reporting _increases_ in their CPC as more advertisers start seeing them as a credible alternative to the big G. Bing is also buying traffic from EVERYONE and kind of "psuedo" buying it by offering access to their search for free through the old Yahoo! BOSS API.

This works for a short period of time, but not for very long so the next thing Google does is to reduce what they paid "other sites" for using their Advertising engine. That let them put more of the money on their own bottom line. This was collectively experienced by millions of web sites that found their AdSense for content ads went from paying $1K a month to paying $100 a month. It was exacerbated by the falling CPC as well. Spammy ad sites proliferated at people who used to make good money with these Ads were desperate to hold onto that revenue stream.

This fix was limited though because, well you can't save yourself out of bankruptcy. You have to grow the top line to keep ahead. So Google began a campaign of adding more and more advertising (some overt, some not so much) to all of their own properties (reported as Google Sites in their earnings). More and more search results were actually ads rather than organic results. And for things that indicated a "commercial intent", ie that the data cow on the other end was looking to spend money, well those queries result in a veritable cornucopia of paid spots, with payments to be in the 'shopping windows' or payments to be on the page, or payments to be higher in the results. White or black hat SEO be damned, there just isn't room on a search result page with commercial intent for an organic result.

Meanwhile Google, now as Alphabet, was pouring cash into bet after bet, and unwilling (or unable) to find a way to nurture even modest successes began a series of project that consumed cash, never were profitable, and then were killed. And things which one might expect to be profitable like a worlds largest video service, or "Google class" cloud computation, struggled. Service after service foundered on a fundamental challenges like having a human being the paying customer could call to get answers to problems. Combining that legendary non-customer service with the propensity to yank services has put tremendous headwinds on any Google offering that asks its customer to rely on it for anything other than a peripheral capability.

Year after year, as the money from ads was harder and harder to get, they have stayed ahead of that decline by killing projects, reducing the amount of money they share with the people who create the content, and trimming back on the "perqs" they used to so freely lavish on their employees.

They can't get robots right, they haven't been able to get self driving cars right, they can't make money with services when their customer service is non- existent, they haven't been able to make money with videos, or books, or much of any other of the worlds information. There are really only two things that people consider "indispensable" and even those are becoming less so, their search engine and their maps.

One makes (to a reasonable approximation) all of the money, and one just costs money. So yeah, they are now stuck trying to squeeze money out of maps because they can't improve the core value of advertising with them. Especially not with all the new restrictions on selling the data cows data milk to third parties.

What I find most interesting is that Google has _decimated_ Garmin's market. Garmin would make anywhere from $30 to $75 per sale on their "navigator" products, which people used for their turn by turn directions and ready maps. Google gave away their maps for free on phones that Google made little money on. That used to be okay, but now it appears that trying to get some revenue out of this product is the only way to avoid the dreaded "year of year decline" in top line revenue. That has so many ill effects from taking the stock price down to creating a competitive opening.

Apple is uniquely positioned here, they have maps and they have devices to show them. Sort of the 21st century version of Garmin where their maps are just a feature of a bigger device. If Apple invested in a privacy first search engine with organic results and limited their advertising aspirations to a modest net income for the group I think they would seriously wound Google.

Interesting times ahead.

</comment><comment><USER72> This will have a detrimental effect on smaller businesses. Those with small teams of developers that have worked tirelessly to build their software around Google's maps APIs. This will damage long term relationships with Google and this mid size firms.

</comment><comment><USER73> Hey Google recruiters, in case you're wondering why I don't respond to your emails asking for interviews, you should know that things like this don't really make me want to work for you.

</comment><comment><USER74> Evil webdesign patterns on this site: After I opted out of all but "required" cookies, the popup kept me waiting for several minutes with "processing preferences", inviting users to cancel the opt-out. Shenanigans like this one has become my main use case for read-it-later-apps like wallabag/pocket these days.</comment>


Slow Software - <AUTHOR> https://www.inkandswitch.com/slow-software.html <comment><USER2> Input latency, I can understand. Web latency, at least you know what you are paying for (trackers, fonts, bloated stylesheets, MBs of JS libraries...). But core software latency, that is pure madness.

Android share menu: what on earth takes 500ms-2000ms to display a menu??

Android scrolling: I could have a smoother scrolling if I rendered the view on a wall in Doom III. Why on earth is the scrolling process not prioritized above everything else?? iOS got this right.

Microsoft Outlook on Mac: it can teak easily 2000ms to close(!) a window, are you kidding me?

My new 2018 Touchbar Mac does not "feel" any faster than my old 2013 retina Mac, while the paper specs and benchmarks show at least 100% increase in computational power. They can both equally easily choke down on some unwanted Skype update or stupid WebEx video stream (yes, I work in corporate).

<comment><USER3> Amen, the Android share menu. Seems like it tries to go through the entire history of my previous shares to see what is most popular, then asks every app that enables sharing to list their respective sharing targets. Some of these apps also checks which of its own sharing targets are most popular (like the sms app and Messenger). Finally it renders a long list that to me feels random each time and not always relevant. /End rant

<comment><USER4> I recently learned I could long press share targets and pin them. So the fine I actually use in the list of a couple dozen actually show up first now.

<comment><USER5> Which, infuriatingly, is disabled in some tier-1 Google apps, including Youtube and Google News.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I work at a large company that is not one of the famous silicon valley tech companies. One of the worst parts of working there is the heap of various enterprise anti-virus software they install on our computers. It brings huge typing and disk access latencies. Even opening files in vim with FZF is slow. I can't explain why but this makes programming so much less pleasant. I really just want to work somewhere without anti-virus.

<comment><USER7> I'm currently picking the OS stack for all machines at my company. All guidance, even people I respect, point towards antivirus protection. Yet I lean towards nixing that. I know it's hugely ineffective. In fact, it opens up holes of its own[1].

And yet... it's like scaffolding in NYC[2]. Absolutely useless[3]. But if you are all for removing it, and a brick falls and hurts someone, heads will roll. Quite a quandary I - and other C-levels - face.

[1] [https://www.computerworld.com/article/3089872/security/secur...](https://www.computerworld.com/article/3089872/security/security- vulnerabilities-in-symantec-and-norton-as-bad-as-it-gets-warns- researcher.html) [2] Another contrarian passion of mine. [3] Bricks do fall and hurt people. But no more than scaffolding itself falls with the same effect.

<comment><USER8> Microsoft Defender typically doesn't hurt performance or security much. The alternative is to run Mac or Linux stacks instead of a Windows stack, of course.

<comment><USER9> While running a Linux stack may still work, your Mac info is outdated by three years, at least. Macs have entered the zoo in 2015.

<comment><USER8> For practical purposes, that's not true.

Macs do not allow running unsigned software by default, and _no one_ runs antivirus on Mac, ever. So even if they were commonly being infected, which they aren't, the person above would have organizational indemnity if someone were infected because they're following industry best practices by not running antivirus on Mac.

If you want, you can further restrict Macs to only App Store software, which is heavily sandboxed. Then you can go even further by not allowing the individual users to install software on their own, if you really want to be draconian about it.

Unless someone is being individually targeted, running very outdated software, or is intentionally trying to get themselves infected, it will not happen. Even if all three conditions are true, it's still very unlikely.

Anyone who says otherwise is just fear mongering. That same level of fear mongering could point to the dozens of pieces of malware that have been released for Linux.

I say this as someone who uses a Linux laptop for work and a Windows desktop at home. I don't have a dog in this fight. I do, however, try to stay very informed about the state of software security.

<comment><USER10> In many enterprises you are only allowed to connect laptops into the network if an anti-virus is present, that includes company issued Macs.

<comment><USER11> And this is why I used to have a laptop in my drawer I used for logging into the proper intranet, booking holidays and organising my pension.

All my _actual_ work was done on Unix/Unix-like machines on our own old network, something we clung on to after acquisition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think this article places too much emphasis on input devices and hardware constraints, and not enough on software architecture. JIRA doesn't really feel any faster just because your input devices are fast; the application level latency dwarfs the input latency by a large margin.

I would take measurements, but JIRA prohibits benchmarking for some reason... ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ they're probably just trying to save everyone else the embarrassment of seeing how incredibly fast JIRA is compared to their own sluggish offerings, right?

I am confident that JIRA's application latency has nothing to do with Java (backend) or JavaScript's (frontend) garbage collector.

Many companies just feel no impetus to write fast software, or to use commensurately powerful hardware.

<comment><USER12> Jira is in a league of its own. With latest stable Firefox on a Macbook Pro from 2014, I get a full 10 seconds loading time for the notifications sidebar. Every click in Jira takes between 5 and 15 seconds. It is absolutely nuts and it seems like many people just don't understand how insanely bad it is (but obviously many engineers do ;)

Meanwhile my browser can load, render, and scroll a 4000 line colored diff in less than half a second (e.g. [https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin...](https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=01897f3e05ede4d66c0f9df465fde1d67a1d733f))

<comment><USER13> Is your jira heavily customized? I haven't seen this level of slowness and use it daily. I know that customizations can be the root of evil on jira

<comment><USER14> And this level of open-ended configurability is why many vendors prohibit benchmarking. While Atlassian is exceptional in some regards, this is not one of them.

<comment><USER15> If jira is slow crap when used in the way real people use it then isn't this a meaningful fact worth sharing?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've said it before and I'll say it again - one of the greatest boons from the new wave of VR is not the tech itself (fun though it is) but the focus on latency as a first-class metric. I've always been sensitive to microstuttering and so find it irritating when a game that's "running at 90fps" (or a document that's scrolling) still has perceptible judders.

<comment><USER17> is 'judder' a synonym for 'jank'?

<comment><USER18> 'judder' refers to dropped frames in a fixed-frame-rate application, frames that are not dropped but are rendered too late, or, more generally, variance in frame rate of a program that should be smoothly animating.

<comment><USER19> I think 'jank' would refer to the same thing, as soon as it lasts longer than a few frames.

E.g. the program runs consistently otherwise, but somehow freezes for 0.5s every minute or so.

<comment><USER20> My intuitive interpretation has been that `jank` is related to frame dropping but with time perception being constant (like sampling being insufficient yet played at correct times) whereas `judder` also has a sort rubberbanding effect on time, where time is perceptutally compressed or dilated as playback is delayed or "catches up", with frame dropping happening upon e.g a deadline being missed. Here, with frames 2 and 4 being costly to render:

        normal: F1....F2....F3....F4....F5....F6
        jank:   F1....F2..........F4..........F6
        judder: F1....F2........F3....F4......F6

<comment><USER16> This use of 'judder' is what I would call 'jitter'. 'Jank' I'd just call 'skipped/dropped frames'. I never realised how much this terminology varies between groups, I think it's fascinating!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Further reading from Dan Luu, who wrote about this as well. [0]

He goes into why the Apple 2e is so quick, the iOS Rendering pipeline, and general complexity of computing input.

I find it really interesting that latency is so high on a lot of devices in 2018.

0\. [https://danluu.com/input-lag/](https://danluu.com/input-lag/) (2017)

</comment><comment><USER22> I like how the site is an example of very fast software, such a simple design and it renders immediately; a single file load with the tiniest of javascript to make the videos work. A full page load in 27ms with only 14kb transferred!

<comment><USER23> to be fair the site is a html site only and gets served via cloudflare. not a fair metric against a "dynamic" site.

also most webservers/frameworks/whatever will favor throughput over latency.

<comment><USER24> dynamic sites are a choice, and achieving that richer level of interaction comes with its own costs. For every legitimately dynamic page out there (going all the way up to full-on applications), there's many more that have no good reason to be anything other than static content that could be served from a cdn. Going pure html for a page that doesn't need more is precisely the sort of design choice that goes with the mentality they're advocating.

Optimising for throughout rather than latency is, again, a design choice, and the article serves as an indictment of taking that too far.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> My least favorite type of latency is when you start typing and the application takes at least 1 - 2 seconds to catch up with you. This still happen to me often enough to be a normal occurrence on both my desktop computer and phone.

<comment><USER26> You know what, I'm actually more okay with this than perceptible, constant latency. If _nothing_ is happening then I know I can just stop looking for characters to appear and keep typing. A tiny part of me loves to "get ahead" and just keep going because I know it'll be magical when it does arrive. If it's just always laggy, though, it's disorienting and disconnects me much worse.

Now if it's always doing that -- like a 1-2 second delay more than a few times in 10 minutes, for instance, it's terrible. But if it's a one-off, I don't mind it.

<comment><USER27> What is _extremely_ annoying is when I get used to this "getting ahead" dance, but every once in a while chrome would just ignore what I typed and I would have to go back and retype it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I keep coming back to thinking that it's the gap between dev and "mainstream" hardware.

Forget about phones for the moment (lol, Javascript performance on a $99 Android).

My PC is a 6-core, 32GB of RAM beast. I suspect that most (non-PC gamers) people's machines look closer to [https://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/acer- aspir...](https://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/acer- aspire-3-15-6-laptop-a315-21-40al-aca3152140).

Dual core, 8GB of RAM, spinning hard drive (!)

I can tell you from experience that Windows 10 isn't a fun experience on anything other than a fast SSD.

<comment><USER29> The machine you posted is pretty typical of PC gamers according to the steam user survey ([https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey?platform=combined](https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey?platform=combined)). 8GB+ of RAM only got to 50% of users a couple of years ago. I suspect most non-pc gamers machines to be even worse, the firefox survey has 30% of people still on 4GB: [https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/hardware](https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/hardware) .

> I can tell you from experience that Windows 10 isn't a fun experience on > anything other than a fast SSD.

Agreed, I think MS are dogfooding exclusively on surface books.

<comment><USER30> >The machine you posted is pretty typical of PC gamers according to the steam user survey

The linked laptop still has an ancient 1366 x 768 screen which is only 12.62% of all players that have taken the survey.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Well, that's all good but it doesn't explain how did we get there. I think, Moore's law resulted in a resource curse for PC and mobile. Unlike with the shared computers from the past and cloud services from now, you pay not for the resources you use, but for the resources you own. And under the Moore's law they grew exponentially for quite a while, so the software simply followed the trend growing exponentially in overheads, too. Technical reasons are probably secondary, since we do still have real-time computing, and high- performance computations in their own respected niches. It's not that all software is inherently bad, it really depends on what it is for. I believe, the socio-economical reasons of the current state of software are most interesting and the least researched.

</comment><comment><USER32> > When dragging items on the screen, for example, users perceive latencies as > low as ~2ms

This seems doubtful, given that even a state-of-the-art 240Hz screen only refreshes every 4.16ms. I guess they could compare dragging on a screen to dragging a physical object, but that would still be comparing 4.16+ms latency to 0ms latency, which doesn't explain the 2ms figure.

<comment><USER33> > This seems doubtful

Ever tried playing a fast paced game with VSync turned on?

<comment><USER32> True, the next frame can start getting drawn before the last one, but every desktop compositor I know of uses vsync.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> When I read the headline I thought this was going to be something like slow food or the slow movement in general [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_movement_(culture)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_movement_\(culture\)) and arguing for software to be slower.

I'm glad I was wrong.

<comment><USER35> My understanding of Slow Food is that it isn't necessarily about "slowness" so to speak. More about keeping things close to nature and not interfering with them / overprocessing too much. Something similar would make sense for software (e.g. using lower level languages, less extraneous JS on websites etc)

<comment><USER36> turn on, tune in, NOP out

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> The "user-hostile" section is kind of silly. Poor/lazy coding is also user- hostile. Requiring 20 megabytes of JavaScript frameworks because you're too lazy to figure out how to solve your feature requirements is user hostile.

Maybe call that other stuff "monetization"

</comment><comment><USER38> I spent a decade working in engineering at Intel. Basically all design work (as of 2016, and for 10+ years prior) is done over VNC to Linux servers in data centers.

The experience was barely tolerable over 100mbit Ethernet to an on-site data center, and anything less was fairly abominable for just about anything other than working in a black and white terminal.

The majority of the work is fairly graphical and most engineers rarely have the luxury of connecting to an on site data center.

Over the years the situation both improved and worsened:

Pluses: \- circa 2010 some of us were lucky enough to get gigabit Ethernet connected to our desk. \- circa 2010-2015 there were improvements to the VNC protocol like JPG and Zlib compression that helped a lot with bandwidth constrained situations (nearly all) \- circa 2014 a lot of us got 802.11ac capable office APs and laptops, often pushing 300+ mbps reliably.

Minuses: \- The company shut down a bunch of datacenters and setup "hub" sites. Making most of us work over high latency WAN links even in the office. \- More and more work seemed to get organized across sites, making many of us remote to far-off datacenters even if we were local to a hub.

No one in engineering management or IT seemed to take the problem seriously. No wonder the company has floundered so much.

To me an unresponsive interface completely spoils flow and dramatically reduces my productivity.

</comment><comment><USER39> Somebody once posted a well known news website with an alternate link that loaded instantly. Anyone remember this? I don't remember if it was WSJ, or NYT or something else.

<comment><USER40> A couple news sites have 'text-based' versions. Became popular as a way to give people in disaster areas with spotty signal a chance to find things out.

These are some I found:

[0] [https://lite.cnn.io/en](https://lite.cnn.io/en)

[1] [http://thin.npr.org/](http://thin.npr.org/)

<comment><USER36> how do I get my browser/OS to modify link URLs when I go there so it prepends the right "lite" URL?

<comment><USER41> [http://einaregilsson.com/redirector/](http://einaregilsson.com/redirector/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Related, dadgum.com's article "How much processing power does it take to be fast?" commenting on an arcade machine playing Defender with very low latency 30-40 years ago - [https://prog21.dadgum.com/68.html](https://prog21.dadgum.com/68.html)

</comment><comment><USER43> On a related subject, I've noticed that my local gas station updated their software for their fuel pumps and it is terrible. For some reason the latency is very high, so high that I can't reliably type in my PIN. It literally takes 500ms - 1000ms for key-presses to register, plus it doesn't seem to cache them very well so if you go too fast it drops the key-press altogether. Finally, they changed the font to a fancy script that is difficult to read on the low resolution display.

At first I thought it must be a hardware change or something on the back-end is slower. There is another gas station of the same brand just 3 miles away and it is still running the old version of the pump software, which is fast and user friendly. In fact, it makes me want to drive that extra bit in order to not have to put up with the slow software.

</comment><comment><USER44> Why aren't ads a data point in the infographic?

Ads are a necessary component of the web atm. They typically insert a delay between the user's action (clicking a button, scanning paragraphs of text with one's eyes) and the desired behavior (watching a video, comprehending which text is the article vs. advertising pictures and/or text).

So a Youtube app running on Fuschia could become a poster child for "anti slow software" based on the author's guidelines. Yet this would only deliver the user more quickly to the problem of ad latency-- a problem which is orders of magnitude worse UX than the problems listed in the article.

It seems like inside baseball to make ad latency an externality to the core problems of slow software.

</comment><comment><USER45> While comparing Samsung and Apple mobile device latencies the article gives these examples: Tapping latency examples (Videos slowed 16x): \- Opening a settings tab on an iPhone 6s with ~90ms of latency. \- Toggling a setting a Samsung S3 with ~330ms of latency.

I agree latency is evil, I hated Android a while ago because of this. Apple always felt really fast compared to other OS. BUT it seems normal that toggling a setting proceeds a bit slower than just opening a tab no? It's like it's just a bad example.

<comment><USER46> Isn't that just ridiculously slow animations for the most part? I still use an ancient OnePlusX that I got when it came out and I've disabled all UI animations, toggling most settings (with legitimate exceptions like activating the wifi hotspot feature) feels almost instant, certainly nothing close to 300 ms. Admittedly, I haven't used any iPhone in many years, so I can't really compare.

<comment><USER35> > Isn't that just ridiculously slow animations for the most part?

Agreed, and as the recent example with the iPhone calculator proved, Apple aren't exactly immune to this either.

<comment><USER46> Can you just disable animations on Apple devices the way you can on Android?

<comment><USER47> Yes, I think low power mode disables almost all animations on apple

<comment><USER46> Wouldn't that also disable other features as well (push notifications, maybe?)? Animations are something I disable permanently just to have a better user experience, I wouldn't like to sacrifice anything else.

<comment><USER48> Yes it would. But you can only reduce effects:

Settings -> General -> Accessibility -> Reduce Motion.

The only thing I dislike is the slightly counter-intuitive quick fading effect when minimizing or switching between apps. Outside of that though, any iDevice feels snappier with that option enabled (== effects reduced).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Link is blocked at work by McAfee Web gateway

Url category is pornography

</comment><comment><USER50> I have an HP EliteBook with an i5 processor, 8GB RAM, and an SSD that's about 70% empty (only 30% space is being used). It runs the latest Windows 10 image from work and _is slow as molasses._ Almost every action I take, be it a mouse click or hitting a key or switching between applications, takes a few seconds or much longer. I thought it's a McAfee issue, but the CPU usage is above 50% almost all the time and this usage is across many processes (whose names I don't understand), not just McAfee.

Since it's a work image of Windows, it has policies set to prevent me from changing many things.

Where do I even start troubleshooting this issue and finding the culprits? Is it just a CPU usage issue and/or some kind of I/O issue? I haven't yet tried using something like Process Explorer (from the sysinternals tools) to get a clearer idea of what's happening (though I'm not sure if that'd help).

I'm thinking of putting Linux on it as an alternative.

Any and all suggestions are welcome and appreciated.

<comment><USER51> McAfee intercepts every IO read/write afaik, which makes it horribly slow

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I seriously doubt the vast majority of the population cares.

I mean, I do. I hate websites that take many seconds to completely load when I _know_ they could take less than 1 second without the bloat.

Hardcore desktop gamers and developers usually are also very performance conscious but that is minority.

Sites keep piling hits while adding bloat, and it's totally counterintuitive. Why?

<comment><USER53> I care. One of my worst slow system experiences is my "new" Xfinity X1 "Entertainment System." Latency to remote control button press is on the order of a second or more. Worse than that, it will put prompts up on screen and not be ready for the input. For example, when I finish watching a recorded program it puts op a "Delete" prompt. If O press the OK button when this prompt appears, nothing happens. I have to wait a second or two and press the OK button again. When I open the list of recorded programs it can take from 2-4 (or more) seconds to display anything. The delays are long enough that I am often left wondering if it registered a button press or if I need to press again. I have to wait at a minimum 4-5 seconds to see if the system is catching up or if I need to repeat an action. It's a constant irritation when using the system. It baffles me that their flagship product is so non- performant. I guess that when you have no real competition there is no motivation to produce a better system.

<comment><USER54> I had an LG "Smart" TV for a year. It was horrible. Suppose that I want to change the channel to number 54:

1\. Pick up remote. Type "5", "4", "OK". Put down remote.

2\. Wait for 5 seconds. A "5" appears on the screen.

3\. Wait for 2 seconds. A "4" appears on the screen.

4\. Wait for 2 seconds. Channel switches.

I sold it and got a 40" screen for my PC instead. The PC actually boots faster than the "Smart" TV.

<comment><USER52> Smart TVs are generally terrible. It's usually better to just use an Nvidia Shield or an Apple TV for the smart functionality.

Manufacturers like LG and Samsung are terrible at UX/UI, and then you have others using Android TV which is great but using crappy low performance SOCs like Sony does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> > We hope this material is helpful for you as you work on your own software.

Sadly, as interesting as the material in the article is (great to learn about the measured latencies of the hardware part), I fail to see much that is "actionnable" for a run-of-the-mill software developper.

It seems the only advice is "don't download ad / tracking / social media - related stuff", but even that is not exactly in the developpers circle of influence. Who's going to make google analytics smaller to download ? (except, well, google ?) Is any developper really in the position to say "great news, our pages now load xxx ms faster !! However, you won't be able to compute your KPIs for this semester, is that a problem ?")

Also, is "using a language without GC" accessible today for a web frontend developper ? (through some rust / wasm / whatever magic ?)

<comment><USER56> The author doesn't say you should use a language without GC, but minimize its effects. There are techniques to avoid GC churn by reducing allocations and the subsequent cleanups.

<comment><USER54> I heard an anecdote about how Minecraft got much slower when Notch (the original developer) turned it over to a team of employees. The new team did some refactoring, e.g. instead of calling functions like

      doWork(int x, int y, int z)

they refactored that into

      doWork(Coordinate c)

and that's when Minecraft started eating RAM like some sort of delicious candy, because now each time you deal with a new Coordinate, it's one more object to garbage-collect. The old method may not have been particularly pretty, but plain ints are allocated on the stack and thus reduce GC pressure.

(BTW, can anyone confirm or deny that anecdote?)

<comment><USER57> Was `Coordinate` a class or a struct? C# structs generally [0][1] don't force use of the garbage-collected heap.

[0] [https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ericlippert/2010/09/30/the-...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ericlippert/2010/09/30/the- truth-about-value-types/) (ignore the usual comments telling the reader they are wrong for wondering about whether the garbage-collected heap is used)

[1] [https://jacksondunstan.com/articles/3453](https://jacksondunstan.com/articles/3453)

<comment><USER58> Minecraft is a Java application.

<comment><USER57> Derp, of course! Mention of Microsoft threw me off :-P

In the JVM, there are of course no structs, but I'd expect the escape analysis optimisations in the HotSpot JIT to reduce it down to avoiding any GC churn. If this isn't happening, I'm curious as to why.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> I recently switched to an OpendBSD machine with no mouse. I have a large screen and use tmux-- no X windows --and a clicky gamer's keyboard. It's soooo nice.

The only downside so far is that about ~%60 of the WWW sucks through Lynx... I have a separate machine on my desk that's basically a Firefox and VSCode kiosk now. But I've gotten a dead-tree hardcopy _book_ on Vim...

</comment><comment><USER60> At first glance I thought it was the sw equivalent of the "slow food" movement. No such luck.

</comment><comment><USER61> Only since I work fulltime with gcc hogging all my CPUs and most of my RAM for up to 10 minutes at a time and also slowing down the computer I fully appreciate having worked in dynamic languages for many years. Yes, that problem might be solvable with a beefy build box.

<comment><USER62> The difference is interpreted vs compiled, not dynamic vs typed. You can use a C interpreter to instantly run C code without compilation.

<comment><USER61> Of course you're right but it's equally often used for interpreted scripting languages. And I don't like the term scripting languages. Apparently naming is hard, who knew.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> At the app level, I'd say it's about responsiveness not latency. Instagram had a post a while back about how they cheat a bit to make their app feel responsive even if actual latency was high.

From this perspective one could say this article puts too much focus into the raw numbers, how many ms to a response. As techies, we like that: cheating is cheating. Numbers are important. But really we need to look harder, how can we make users perceive that things are better than the raw numbers.

</comment><comment><USER64> I hope devs can fix the racing wheel latency first, so we can enjoy those racing games.

<comment><USER28> Which racing wheel have you tried? Was it implemented as a HID device (subject to the polling rate limitations described in the article) or with its own driver?

<comment><USER64> I didn't buy single one since I have seen many youtube videos, all seem to have latency (yep, HID device). By latency I mean, when you throw steer, you can see it reflects about 1/3 second to the gameplay. It is very hard to blame slowest part, probably the game itself, but I really wish that would be solved.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> there's slow as laggy and slow tempo

I remember how I loved my slow hp48, the input buffer was still listening and I could easily think and keep typing operations while the screen was busy, never felt "slow"

</comment><comment><USER66> > Android and iOS both make substantial use of "long press" to access context > menus, which require that the user wait hundreds of milliseconds in the > middle of their command gestures.

> A related source is delays for disambiguation. For example, on mobile Safari > there's a default 350ms delay between when the user taps a link and when the > browser begins fetching the new page, in order to tell the difference > between a link click and a double-tap zoom.

I really wish mobile devices had one or two modifier buttons on the side. That way you could have "right click", maybe even positioning a cursor without clicking, all sorts of crazy stuff, like being able to "mouse over" a link in a mobile browser.

<comment><USER67> Apple has 3D touch, where if you press firmly on the screen, the phone makes a tactile "click" and triggers a different action than normal tap. Annoyingly, Apple mapped 3D touch to a totally new set of actions instead of replacing long press.

<comment><USER68> Apple has slowly started merging the two, because it makes it easier for them to support devices with and without the feature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> You will never massage and cram all the remote cruft efficiently enough to get back the responsiveness of an Apple II. Today's software is turtles all the way down from the library to the sub-library to the JIT to the application and OS and hardware and they each need 5-25 milliseconds to even wake up. That's before you even hit the network.

Things don't get bad, they get worse.

<comment><USER54> > Today's software is turtles all the way down from the library to the sub- > library to the JIT to the application and OS and hardware and they each need > 5-25 milliseconds to even wake up.

Where do you get these numbers? I have programs that run from start to finish in 5 ms, including tons of OS syscalls.

I think many of us forgot how efficient OSes are because of the shitshow that app developers put on top.

<comment><USER70> I have a Go program that parses command line arguments, loads and parses a text file, then interprets that code on a faux-CPU. Total time 24ms start to finish for 107 faux-CPU steps (sorting 12 numbers of bunches of 3) according to `time`.

<comment><USER54> Mine is also a Go program that reads several files and does some basic computations on top of it. I wrote about the `time` measurements here: [https://blog.bethselamin.de/posts/latency- matters.html](https://blog.bethselamin.de/posts/latency-matters.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Peepeth: a decentralized alternative to Twitter - <AUTHOR> https://peepeth.com/ <comment><USER2> I built Peepeth. Would appreciate your advice & suggestions.

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks like a really neat approach to an uncensored social network.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is awesome!

<comment><USER2> Thanks, appreciate your support!

<comment><USER4> The good thing about signing up early to services is that I managed to get my @name ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow awesome

<comment><USER2> Thanks Nick! Let me know if you need help signing up.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can someone do a write up on how to properly use a VPN - <AUTHOR> Can someone, like ryan lackey, please do a write up on how to secure yourself across all devices and social media? <comment><USER2> Just so that you know, HN is the worst possible place to ask general questions.

But I'm more curious to know why you think a VPN will keep you "secure" on social media? All a VPN does is change your ip address; what threat do you think that protects you from? Social networking is for learning about people based on their behavior, and then showing ads to them. That primarily means the content, frequency, and nature of people's interactions with other people and with content such as videos and articles. Your ip address is irrelevant to all of that.

<comment><USER3> Also, assume the VPN is logging your activity, even if they say they don't log your activity: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23876146](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23876146)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Try /r/VPN, /r/privacy, and search into HN posts over the past year related to endpoint security (start with anything that has 'security' in the title and filter from there.)

Securing your devices is one thing, security your connectivity and communication channels is another, and opsec as it relates to social media is another. There are better forums for this and most of the data is already out there if you look for it.

</comment><comment><USER5> The most blatant thing is to never install their applications, extensions, or any native code.

It immediately blows through your VPN.</comment>


High-Tech Hedge Fund Hits Limits of Robot Stock Picking - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-future-is-bumpy-high-tech-hedge-fund-hits-limits-of-robot-stock-picking-1513007557 <comment><USER2> What is considered high tech these days?

I guess getting your name printed in the Wall Street Journal in order to raise funds is what is considered high tech.

Renaissance Technologies doesn't seem to have a problem performing and they use machine learning. 80% YoY for 3 decades...

These guys are way behind.</comment>


Aha! moments in Lisp... What were your 'Aha moments' in your favorite language? - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/browse_thread/thread/a12b2503c989761a/c5318848c215296f#c5318848c215296f

<comment><USER2> You get a similar feeling with Javascript by reading the source code of libraries like prototype.js or jQuery. Lots of "Wait, you can do that in Javascript?!?" moments.

</comment><comment><USER3> Python: \- the first time I concisely solved a seemingly complex problem with a few list comprehensions and a well thought out structure of maps and lists

C: \- Using an include file as a simple database and redefining a macro to form a primitive code generator (first saw this in a CPU simulator)

Haskell: \- SPJ's books on implementing functional languages -- the simple beginning pieces seemed to generate more Aha moments (pretty printing and parsing)

While none of these are specific to the given language, they represent points- of-no-return for a change in the way I think about solving (or even representing) problems.

</comment><comment><USER4> My Aha moment was the first time I saw one program produce output which was the source code of a new program. Today we call that "code generation". Back then, I called it "the day everything changed". To this day, whenever I write something, I ask myself, "What could have generated that?"

Works well in any language.</comment>


Sales for Startups 101: 3 Rules to Success - <AUTHOR> http://okdork.com/2010/08/12/sales-for-startups-101-3-rules-to-success/

<comment><USER2> I like the thought that "sales is not selling, its understanding." Sales people are way more pleasant when they really take the time to understand your situation and needs.</comment>


Turtle Rock community manager let go after Donald Sterling Twitter remarks - <AUTHOR> http://www.polygon.com/2014/5/1/5673218/turtle-rock-community-manager-josh-olin-twitter-donald-sterling

<comment><USER2> _Olin later clarified that he believed Sterling was a victim because of "illegal wiretapping resulting in a MASSIVE, life altering breach in privacy." Today, Olin tweeted he was "expressly not defending [Sterling's] remarks or actions."_

Hemay well be wrong about this, because Sterling's girlfriend claims she recorded calls at his request as an aid to his unreliable memory. As recording calls without both parties' consent is criminal in CA but sterling hasn't sworn out any complaint against her that we know of, there's a good chance she's telling the truth about that.

As for the rest of it, I don't know. Seems to me a community manager with a ton of Twitter followers ought to be cautious about expressing opinions on controversial topics that might reflect badly on his employer, though I suspect they'll settle their disagreement.</comment>


Segment Sources – Load Salesforce, Zendesk, Stripe into Redshift and Postgres - <AUTHOR> https://segment.com/sources <comment><USER2> ETL-as-a-Service is a great idea, particularly one that is visualization/analytics-tool-agnostic!

However, there are so many data sources, and they all require different integrations with their different APIs or export mechanisms. A service isn't really useful unless it can import the lion's share of services that a given company uses...

<comment><USER3> You're right. There are a lot of sources out there. It's a ton of work for companies to build out their own pipelines and learn every new API. We want to save them from that burden so that they can focus on the analysis. We'll be adding many more connections in the coming weeks and months, and also opening up the platform for cloud services to add themselves. Stay tuned!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder if this makes BI companies freak out a little bit -- because pushing this data into redshift and adding a visualization layer on top takes care of most smaller scale BI needs...

<comment><USER3> Actually, we don't have any interest in being a visualization tool, and are super focused on building customer data infrastructure of the future.

This product release is in close partnership with our BI partners (Looker, Mode, Wagon, Periscope, BIME and Chartio). One of the biggest problems our mutual customers face is getting data into their warehouse so that they can use the BI tool in the first place. This launch significantly expands the possible audience for them.

Even better, all of our BI partners built out-of-the-box reporting and dashboards based on Segment's schemas for these new third party sources. So our mutual customers can get set up even faster.

<comment><USER5> Can someone use Segment to generate per-user reporting data?

So, instead of Total Company Sales this Month, I want Bob's Sales, Joe's Sales, etc. It feels like this is just a filter on top of what you already have. Almost like a parameterized query? (pass in @UserId for a where statement)

I originally thought maybe this is the job for one of your visualization partners but you really need to filter the results before you perform the aggregate.

<comment><USER6> hey vyrotek - you can definitely build that report using Segment sources + BI tool.

Our salesforce source pulls in the Salesforce `Opportunities` and `Users` table (your sales team members). So to get sales by sales rep, you can join the `Opportunities` table to `Users` table, and then aggregate by sales rep.

Once you get the raw data into your data warehouse, you have a ton of flexibility with how you aggregate and analyze it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> RJMetrics has a similar product (ETL as a service) with 10x the number of rows for their free tier. [https://rjmetrics.com/product/pipeline/](https://rjmetrics.com/product/pipeline/)

</comment><comment><USER8> What a coincidence, today only I came across another ETL as a service from Pintrest - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11438216](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11438216)

</comment><comment><USER5> Is this just running the SF SoQL statement for you and storing the aggregated result in a Segment table?

Or does Segment provide a way to completely clone entire SF tables such as Opportunities & Cases and then create the aggregate queries later in segment?

<comment><USER9> Great question! When you enable a source, we begin running a job on an interval for you that pulls the data from the source, applies some light normalizations and transformations, and sends the data to our Object API (which is in charge of upserting the data into Segment and flushing it to your warehouse).

In Salesforce's case, we issue bulk queries to pull the complete collection on the first run, then modify the queries thereafter to request only data that's changed since the last run.

We don't do any aggregation of the data. We load it into a data warehouse (redshift or postgres) in its complete, raw form so that you can use SQL to aggregate/join to your heart's content. Here's an example: [https://help.segment.com/hc/en- us/articles/208215583-Salesfo...](https://help.segment.com/hc/en- us/articles/208215583-Salesforce-Calculate-close-rates-for-qualified-deals- over-time)

<comment><USER10> You should make this available for trial. No way I'm paying $449 just to try it.

I set it up with the developer account, but when I try to connect the integration, it says it's not available for the developer plan. I was like "ok, fine, i'll pay 50 bucks to try it" but then it says salesforce is only available on the Growth plan, which is $449.

Closed the tab, and moved on with my life.

<comment><USER9> Sorry for the confusion there — our integration that sends data _to_ Salesforce is on the integrations growth tier, but the pricing for data sources and warehouses is separate (and does indeed have a free trial :).

Your point prompted us to add a callout in the UI to prevent this sort of confusion going forward (see here: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/yoc6a3nvsoupesa/Screenshot%202016-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/yoc6a3nvsoupesa/Screenshot%202016-04-06%2013.44.39.png?dl=0))... and more generally we'll be working to make the distinction between data sources and data destinations clearer from a UX perspective in the near future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> just be careful with SFDC, bunch of harsh limits, killer one being 5k bulk api requests per rolling 24h.

if you think that's a lot you haven't seen big orgs with a shit ton of integrations and custom stuff on top of them.

</comment><comment><USER12> Segment is always killing it.

<comment><USER13> They're totally doing great! (But we should use less violent language to describe it...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Are there any plans for Warehouses support for IBM's DashDB?

<comment><USER6> Hey slachterman DashDB isn't yet on the roadmap, mind filling this out so we can follow up?

[https://segment.com/contact/requests/warehouse](https://segment.com/contact/requests/warehouse)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Please add options to use Windows Azure as a warehouse!

<comment><USER6> hey vyrotek thanks for the request! mind filling this out a request and we'll follow up? [https://segment.com/contact/requests/warehouse](https://segment.com/contact/requests/warehouse)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Ethics in Software Development - <AUTHOR> Hi,
I'm a long time HN lurker and I wanted to let you guys know what I have been dealing with.
I have been a programmer for 10+ years and I have take pride in every code I write. I learn from my peers and try my best to share my knowledge and wisdom.
My manager asked me to write something that breaks the trust of our users. Creating fault charts and data. It breaks my heart to the core. Straight up lying about the technology and things we can do. I love programming and writing cool shit! I want build something that matters and not FAKE IT.
I don't know how I want to deal with this situation. All I want to do is the create something for my users that they really love and enjoy.
Thanks HN. <comment><USER2> If your company has to fake it, they wont make it for very long. Start sending out resumes

<comment><USER3> This is probably the best advice.</comment></comment>


The quiet giant of consumer database marketing - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/technology/acxiom-the-quiet-giant-of-consumer-database-marketing.html?pagewanted=1&_r=4&&pagewanted=all

<comment><AUTHOR> FYI, as of today the records request page is https by default.</comment>


Is Good Code Impossible? (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://raptureinvenice.com/is-good-code-impossible/ <comment><AUTHOR> This blog post is included in the book The Clean Coder: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers (Robert C. Martin Series).</comment>


Google Earth Reverse Engineering - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/retroplasma/earth-reverse-engineering.git <comment><USER2> "Reverse engineering" seems a bit pointless when Google has open sourced the code for Google Earth Enterprise:

[https://github.com/google/earthenterprise](https://github.com/google/earthenterprise)

(Update: The client was _not_ open sourced, just the server.)

However, this doesn't give you carte blanche to use Google's own imagery:

[https://maps.google.com/help/terms_maps.html](https://maps.google.com/help/terms_maps.html)

<comment><USER3> That's an interesting TOS.

I've never before seen "fair use" called out as an explicit allowance in terms of copyright restrictions by the part of the copyright holder. It's not entirely clear to me what that would even imply.

<comment><USER4> I suspect they're trying to give more reassurance to "personal, non-commercial use is allowed as long as you don't hit our servers too hard" \--- which seems to be their stance on a lot of their other services too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I hope this gets mirrored somewhere else, because I don't trust GitHub to not cave in to legal demands despite RE being legal regardless of EULA in parts of the world, and the extra attention this gets may otherwise kill it.

<comment><USER5> From what I've seen, GitHub will only respond to a DMCA request for takedown, and Google very rarely files those (I think I saw one in the GitHub DMCA notice repo for an entire internal published source repo once, could be misremembering). Google doesn't usually fight with lawyers instead of tech (e.g. making scraping more difficult).

Not saying you shouldn't fork or fear, but GitHub and Google are generally good actors compared to others.

<comment><USER6> Yes, but MS now owns Github and MS might have a different viewpoint in terms of copyright than GH has traditionally had.

<comment><USER7> Why do you suspect that?

<comment><USER8> Not OP, but I'd say because IIRC it's now a different CEO.

<comment><USER6> MS has traditionally been a software company, and has a LOT of court experience over the last 40 years regarding copyright and lawsuits when it comes to code and IP. I just think they _might_ have a different viewpoint than GH has traditionally had, since GH's business is completely different than traditional MS businesses. The post I was responding to was talking about GH in the past and what they might do based on that. I'm just saying there's a _recently new_ owner who _might_ look at it differently, so past behavior might not be the best indicator for this since it's being run by a different corporation now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> NASA's WorldWind is a similar project for those interested - [https://github.com/NASAWorldWind/WebWorldWind](https://github.com/NASAWorldWind/WebWorldWind)

docs - [https://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/web/](https://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/web/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Once you have an OBJ file, you can 3D print it:

[https://all3dp.com/1/obj-file-format-3d-printing- cad/](https://all3dp.com/1/obj-file-format-3d-printing-cad/)

If you want a 3D model of your office building or something.

<comment><USER11> Do you have a better guide to this? The model seems to be infinitely thin, which makes it unprintable in all the slicers I've tried.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm so glad that this has been made, I tried working on something like this a while ago but gave up after struggling for a bit. At the time I was surprised it didn't exist yet.

I'm wondering though if Google'll eventually patch things so this doesn't work, or if they're not too bothered by people grabbing data like this.

<comment><USER13> In the "old", initial days (circa 2005-2006) they weren't bothered by this, I remember they released the GMaps public API back then as a result (among other factors) of some people reverse engineering the public-facing interface. If I'm not mistaken one of the first projects that was using the reverse- engineered version (before the API was made public) was the former Chicago Crime website, one of the first Django installations.

<comment><USER14> The book 'Never Lost Again' (2018) tells the keyhole/Google Maps story line. [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35820393-never-lost- agai...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35820393-never-lost-again) Actually I left with the impression nobody involved had a good plan what Google Maps should be after launch. API was an afterthought.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Love this, but I'm getting an error:

"DeprecationWarning: Buffer() is deprecated due to security and usability issues"

Opened an issue: [https://github.com/retroplasma/earth-reverse- engineering/iss...](https://github.com/retroplasma/earth-reverse- engineering/issues/3)

<comment><USER16> That's not an error, just a warning. You can proceed using it just fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is amazing. Would it be practical to download an entire town or small city?

<comment><USER18> Can be done, although high LOD takes a while and the current implementation might eat up all memory. You can run it in parallel though. Shard by octants :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> this is sick. how did you figure out the numeric schemes and even have the idea to look where you did?

<comment><USER18> Mainly lived inside Chrome's dev tools for many nights. Its deobfuscator and debugger is very handy. Still scratched my head lots of times along the way. Some interesting stuff is still missing, e.g. no idea yet how they get octant paths from geo coordinates.

<comment><USER20> That's kind of funny that Google wrote both the obfuscated code and the deobfuscator.

<comment><USER21> The obfuscation isn't necessarily a deliberate attempt at hindering reverse engineering, but a result of their optimizing JS compiler and Protobuf-to- JSON-bridge.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Building an Emotional Weather App - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/basic-weather/building-an-emotional-weather-app-2e34e72027e7 <comment><AUTHOR> Hey all, I thought HN might relate to the struggle of trying to build a side project in your spare time.</comment>


Following your bliss, right off the cliff - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/26/your-money/the-painful-but-liberating-lessons-of-a-career-failure.html

<comment><AUTHOR> This - suffering comes from being attached to the outcomes." - reminded me of a similar quote from Bhagavad Gita (paraphrased) - "Do your duty without attachment to the outcomes"</comment>


The coming era of unlimited – and free – clean energy - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2014/09/21/the-coming-era-of-unlimited-and-free-clean-energy/

<comment><USER2> What a fluff piece. The author should run some numbers on the energy density and size of a battery that would be required to meet energy demand when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine.

In this case where the grid has to fall back on non renewable sources of energy the utilities that own them are going to charge a very dear price to recoup their costs.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure why someone downvoted you.

Just wishing for something doesn't make it come true. The battery technology needed is non-existent. The article says that batteries "will improve so much over the next two decades that homes won't be dependent on the utility companies" isn't just wishful thinking. It's wishful thinking unsupported by known science. Similarly, in 1973 just as I entered college, nuclear fusion for power was also just around the corner. 40+ years later it's further away than ever.

Germany, one of the leaders in solar (even though they don't have the climate for it) is learning the hard way that just wishing for good outcomes doesn't make them magically happen. Here's [1] an article just from today that shows that they are burning more dirty coal than ever in their quest to be green.

Solar power doesn't work at night. In parts of Oregon and Washington it doesn't really work very well for about half the year, even in "daylight" (which is in quotes because it's often heavily overcast or raining here for much of that time).

Anyone who wants "unlimited" and "free" energy should get to work on figuring out how to store all that solar energy for when "the sun don't shine". Otherwise this article is about as useful as something pulled out from where "the sun don't shine"!

However, I'm not anti-solar, I'd love to see the deserts in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas dotted with solar installations. I'd love to see HVDC used to transport all that energy to where it could be put to good use. But none of that infrastructure will ever be close to "free".

[1] [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-21/merkel-s-taste- for-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-21/merkel-s-taste-for-coal- poised-to-upset-130-billion-green-drive.html)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Ah. Venturebeat. Never shy about hyping the future.

The power industry was saying that nuclear power would be 'too cheap to meter' in the 1970s.

Ray Kurzweil does not make that mistake but is he right about the cost curve going forward? It's not like semiconductors where you get cost-reduction driven by a physical effect.

<comment><USER4> cost-reduction is also a function of productivity. We see that - at least since the industrial revolution - every doubling of production reduces cost 20-30%. It's the same whether we're talking about cars, shoes, planes, or solar panels.

<comment><USER5> That ... doesn't seem right.

First off, what's the decrease in cost if the production stays the same? If it's also 20-30% then the doubling isn't really relevant, is it? (One example might be the cost of a 75W incandescent bulb, which was essentially a commodity over several decades, but where the doubling time would be long.)

Second, how does one compare a car from 1950 to a car from now? They are built to very different standards and expectations.

There have been 3 doublings of car production since 1950, says [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_motor_vehi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_motor_vehicle_production) (10.5M cars in 1950, 87M cars now).

The average purchase price of a car in the US in 1950 was $1,500. That's an upper bound of the production cost. Should I really believe that a modern car costs no more than $1,500 * 0.8^3 = $750 in 1950 dollars to produce? That's under $8,000 in 2014 dollars, while the average sales price for a modern car is more than $30K. I don't believe the profit margin in car manufacturing is anywhere near that high.

Can you explain how cars fit your description? Since my quick analysis says it's not all that meaningful to the discussion.

Also, the production cost of petroleum has not followed the trend that you suggest is universal.

<comment><USER4> Look at the capability & price of LED lighting over the last 20 years as their production has skyrocketed.

As you said, cars have simultaneously become much more capable (safety, reliability, fuel-effiencey, performance) while they have gotten cheaper. Your $1500 1950 car cannot be compared to a median modern car. Even the Mercedes S class from then 50s (arguably the most advanced car) cannot be compared to a Toyota corolla today, the corolla is WAY more capable.

As the production of wealth like 'air-bags', 'cruise-control', & 'direct- injection' doubles, they become cheaper and cheaper, even if the overall production of cars doesn't necessarily double at the same rate.

My statement of "reduce costs 20-30%" can manifest in greater capabilities as well as a reduced price. Both a 1985 and 2015 television could easily cost $1000 (inflation adjusted), but the 2015 TV would probably be close to 10x bigger, use 10x less electricity (OLED), and have 10x more overall capability. This is not only a function of global TV production, but all kinds of cross- pollinating technological productivity gains, from semiconductors to logistics. It's all connected so it's hard to make generalizations - and there are always exceptions - but economists have found that the "doubling production = 20-30% reduced costs" rule is reasonably starting point.

<comment><USER5> I rather strongly dislike the use of "20-30%" for something as inherently subjective as measuring the differences between a 1950 and 2014 automobile. How many percentage is an airbag? How much better are seat belts? Where is a study which has tried to quantify this?

The same holds for LED lighting. We aren't producing the same lights as 20 years, so it's a function of far more than productivity.

I believe you are talking about the experience-effect curve, described at [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_curve_effects](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_curve_effects) . "This relationship was probably first quantified in 1936 at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in the United States,[1] where it was determined that every time total aircraft production doubled, the required labour time decreased by 10 to 15 percent."

That curve describes about units in a production run, not aggregated over the industry across multiple types of units.

That page links to [http://fas.org/news/reference/calc/learn.htm](http://fas.org/news/reference/calc/learn.htm) , which also talks about identical units. It uses 10-20% reduced costs as a reasonable starting point.

Ah! I found a more recent publication, at [http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0052669) which tries to show that it can be extended to a wide range of industries.

> all the technologies we study here behave roughly similarly: Information > technologies closely follow patterns of improvement originally postulated by > Wright for airplanes [3]–[8], and technologies such as beer production or > offshore gas pipelines follow Moore's law [9], [10], but with a slower rate > of improvement [8], [11]–[15].

The cost reduction in the chemistry industry ranges from 1% to 48% if I read the supporting information correctly. It also covers other industries.

Interestingly, it comments that:

> One automobile may be faster, while another is less expensive. For this > study, we focus on one common measure of performance: the inflation-adjusted > cost of one "unit". This metric is suitable in that it can be used to > describe many different technologies. However, the nature of a unit may > change over time. ... We nonetheless use the changes in the unit cost as our > measure of progress, in order to compare competing models using a sizable > dataset.

but doesn't actually measure the automobile industry. Then again, according to my estimate, under that unit-based metric automobiles have a negative curve.

The paper continues:

> The crudeness of this approach only increases the difficulty of forecasting > and makes it particularly surprising that we nonetheless observe common > trends.

It might be because it's mostly talking about commodity production. The exceptions, like MonochromeTelevision, are under "Other Industries" and date from WW2 and the post-war era.

Photovoltaics, btw, is in the 20-30% range you mentioned. I'm much less convinced about cars and shoes.

Also, the Wikipedia page points out that could really just be seen as a an economy of scale. For example, Goddard C (1982) Debunking the learning curve. IEEE Transactions on Components, Hybrids, and Manufacturing Technology 5: 328–335. doi: 10.1109/tchmt.1982.1136009

That PLOSOne article tries to test that, coming to the tentative conclusion that improved productivity is a better for short time scales, and Goddard's model for economy of scale is fine for long time scales. This suggest to me that economy of scale and not improved productivity may be the more relevant factor for the decade long trends you're talking about.

Anyway, that's my inner Hermione coming out. :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Let's talk about sex baby, let's talk about PGP (by Jacob Applebaum) - <AUTHOR> https://voicerepublic.com/venues/193/talks/284

<comment><USER2> Interesting crypto beginner talk to share with non IT people!</comment>