Comment by crote
11 hours ago
> I received a barrage of comments about working for free for a corporation that's making money off me
The problem is that the big tech companies aren't holding up their end of the traditional social contract.
I like to think of the wider open source community as one giant group project. Everyone contributes what they can, and in turn they can benefit from the work everyone else has done. The work you do goes towards making the world a better place. I have absolutely zero problem filing pull requests for bugs I encounter or submitting issues on OpenStreetMap, because I know that in return I get the Linux DE and reliable maps in other towns. If you want to make it political, it's a "from each according to their means, to each according to their needs".
The big tech companies operate completely differently. They see open source contributors primarily as a resource to exploit. Submit a single fix on Google Maps? You'll get zero credit, they'll never stop bothering you with popups about "making improvements", design their map around what is most profitable to show, and they will of course log your location history and sell it to the highest bidder. And they are getting filthy rich off of it as well.
I couldn't care less about getting monetary compensation for some odd work I do in my spare time, but there's no way in hell I'm going to do free labor for some millionaire who's going to reward me by spitting in my face.
The amount of value Google Maps has given me is far beyond what I'd be willing to pay in actual dollars.
Agreed: the opportunity to be taken to a rocky dirt road through swamp grounds on the outskirts of a small town in Greece is something I'd never get if not for Google Maps :)
(and many similar stories)
I only use Google Maps for their live traffic info, which they so nicely collect out of majority of Android users driving around. I'd love it if OSM apps could leverage that information for navigation too.
> The problem is that the big tech companies aren't holding up their end of the traditional social contract.
This analogy feels too strained.
Google gives away Maps, Gmail, and other products for free. A little UI widget inviting users to submit fixes is hardly an onerous demand.
> and they will of course log your location history and sell it to the highest bidder.
Google does not do this, no matter how many times this myth gets repeated online.
I think a lot of people in the Reddit and Reddit-adjacent world believe this is true because it gets repeated so much, but it's not true.
Ironically, Reddit makes money by packaging up user's content and selling it to 3rd parties.