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Comment by eru

20 hours ago

Google prompts you in Google Maps if you want to upload your picture to Maps.

I sometimes do that for random pictures, even like selfies, which I don't mind popping up there.

Wait... You post selfies on Google Maps? The thought never crossed my mind. What would the purpose be? Sorry I'm probably thick...

  • I can say for me that after my father died I posted pictures of him at some of his favorite places or from favorite trips.

  • Google Maps app sees that you took photo near POI and later in the day asks you in notification if you want to share it on maps.

    You review the photo and go "lol, sure".

    At least for me that doesn't even feel like posting due to how frictionless it is and that it's about natural discoverability (someone has to click that POI and scroll through photos to find it).

    • About the latter: that's why Google Maps is my favourite social medium. It's hyper-local.

  • For that sweet local guide score.

    • I really don't know why anyone would try hard to get that. On Chinese map app (Amap) at least you can get a ride hailing coupon, for a nice taxi discount.

    • If you accrue a high score, Google should give you a plaque like they give to Youtubers with many subscribers.

    • I remember arriving in Lisbon, leaving a favorable review for a restaurant because they were so nice to us, and Google sending me a notification that I'm now a local guide for Lisbon.

      What exactly does that mean though? Is there any benefits to it? All I see is a badge/label, that's it?

      1 reply →

I had a popup on my iPhone one day "You were in City Park last weekend, would you like to share those photos?". I stopped allowing google access to my photos after that. A little late though, they had apparently scraped all of my data already.

  • I had a similar moment a few years ago. That Google Maps pop-up was what caused me to first switch to de-googled Android, and once that turned out to be a hassle after a couple of years, switch to an iPhone without Google stuff. (On Android, Google is a location provider, so blocking their access is much harder.)

  • I don't even have G-apps on my phone. They work fine in a browser, until they don't. I was trying to use streetview yesterday and it would not open in the browser and kept trying to redirect me to the app store. So now they are deliberately borking their webapps to punish those not using native apps.

    • Yeah, there are lots of pages that don't show the (google) map if you don't have google services enabled on your android phone. Not sure if this is something that could be solved on browser level though? I'm quite certain that these pages still work on iphones...