Matt Stoller, you are quick to blame Google for everything here but isn't the real idiot Noam for selling Waze in the first place? And now he's complaining about it! Oh, except I forgot, he made a shit tonne of money selling his company in the first place. So he can't really complain can he...
Noam did what was in the short-term interest of his investors and team. The point of public policy is to be sure that short-term interests for individuals don't harm the public. In this case, the public is clearly harmed (maps aren't as good and cost more because there's less competition.)
As someone who sold to a big company, I can assure you that the choice isn't always an easy one. In our case, if we hadn't sold, it was clear that they would have competed with us at a loss for as long as it took for us to fail. Not much of a choice, actually.
It sounds like you have an in-built assumption that the small company will always fail... unless public policy steps in. Do you actually believe there is no choice? Isn’t it a courageous act to fight against the odds? (Or do I watch too many movies?)
small companies don't always fail. But if, let's just say, Microsoft announces that they're going to give away the only product you sell, and there's no network effect at work, it's hard to see how you can make that bet.
the network effect gives little companies a chance to become big ones, but it also is a huge tool to allow big companies to protect against little ones.
the iPhone is the single most profitable product in the history of the world, and it will be that way for a while... free market theory would say that wouldn't last, but the network effect and lock in are hard to overcome.
It doesn't have to be the only product -- Netscape sold more than Navigator; they sold web servers and web development tools. But in including Explorer in every Windows deployment, Microsoft cut off the funds Netscape was using to build those other products, forcing Netscape into a (bad) acquisition by AOL.
(Had to google network effect and lock-in; genuinely appreciate the vocab expansion) I hate the idea that the innovator doesn’t always get to bring the innovation to the masses. Life’s not fair, yada yada. Maybe the innovator is now freed to work on a new problem or maybe they sit on their laurels and walk away with their check or maybe they grow despondent and give up.
I also dislike being forced to rely on government intervention as the only alternative. I’m not anti-gov, but gov doesn’t generally move fast.
When I get stuck between a rock and a hard place, I put my back flat against one side, legs against the other, and start climbing. (I know that’s just metaphor logic, but metaphors are mainly what I traffic in)
I think that without clearly seeing network effects and lock-in, as Matt has been writing about so eloquently, it's really hard to have a useful conversation about the future of anti-monopoly work.
And government is just another word for community action. Community action creating laws is why eye makeup doesn't make people blind and diet pills don't make people explode (any more). Worth looking up.
There are no well-functioning fully free markets in the world. However, there are small towns far from here where the government has no role whatsoever and my hunch is that you wouldn't want to live there. I don't.
I live in Wisconsin and have spent a good amount of time in the far reaches of the Upper Penninsula/Michigan where the main street of towns is composed of three or four collapsed buildings sitting beside a coffee shop.
Interesting that you use the phrase "short-term". Despite that, Noam himself says (from the article), "Looking back, we could have probably grown faster and much more efficiently had we stayed independent."
So your point is invalid in this case. I know that these are all speculations and unknowns but he must have had an inkling even at the time that they could have gone it alone and succeeded. They had a unique selling point that google maps didn't - large user base sharing traffic data in real time for the benefit of all. Yes, google could have implemented that too, but Waze was the go-to name in this field and had critical mass protecting them. Just like Microsoft couldn't compete on video calls, they had to pay for Skype or the fact that google couldn't compete on video sharing and so had to buy youtube.
He knew selling Waze was an irreversible transaction and he took the money, got rich and did it anyway. No point crying over spilt milk and bemoaning the fact now...
Anyone who didn't see this coming when Google bought Waze is an idiot. Google has no use for two competing maps apps, with two different UIs, feature sets and basemaps. Give your head a shake Noam.
Maps is an engineering marvel, without a doubt, but Waze is better for driving. Sometimes the app that does only one thing but does it very well will trump a super app that does everything.
I am disappointed in Google. Gone are the days when they supposedly baked in ethical engineering in their products.
What they are ignorant about is that there is a huge chunk of the 200 million waze users that are in the logistics and delivery sector of poorer countries and this would hurt if not cripple their operations.
Many drivers in developing countries that have chaotic traffic situations also need the superior rerouting and real time traffic assessment and crowd sourced road condition up updates the Waze provides.
1. pre-installation is a lesser evil. The Google Mobile Services is the real problem that lock up the phone vendors and users into Google infrastructure
2. Noam sold the company to Google because of the bad relationships with his board: "Due to a bunch of mistakes early on, we did not own substantial amounts of equity and had a pretty bad relationship with some of our board members. I remember the bottom line: “wouldn't you rather work for Larry Page than our current board”? https://paygo.media/p/25171
3. His major complain against Google is his inability to fire people at his will and govern Waze as a sole authority. Not sure Google ruined Waze, it is still quite popular in many places and improving.
Although i definitely agree that monopolies are bad, in this specific case , i wouldn't fully rely on Noam that "could have probably grown faster and much more efficiently had we stayed independent."
My assumption was always that they bought Waze simply to keep it out of Apple's hands. If there was ever a company in desperate need of a better mapping app it's Apple.
I anticipated Waze was going to go downhill right away, just because Google has a tendency to ruin everything it touches. And it wasn't long before I was proven right. As soon as Google bought it, I started noticing changes: development became stagnant, issues complained about by tons of users were ignored (in typical Google/MS/standard large corporation fashion), many of the things that were changed were changed for the worse, the app became less stable, etc, etc, not to mention it just seemed like the dev team was suddenly in an impenetrable bubble and there was zero real communication anymore. I still use Waze for longer drives, because even with all its problems I prefer it over Google Maps for the alerts and just how it functions overall, but I primarily use Maps for local drives. And of course, since those are the two big map programs, and Google owns both of them, they have no incentive to really work on either, so neither one is nearly as good as it could/should be.
I have noticed in the last few months waze has gone to shit. Such as when you think you're making a turn at the next road and right before the turn it says "just kidding" and zooms in with the next turn 2 streets away. Other times it does the opposite and you think it'll zoom in again but it actually is zoomed in and you have to slam the brakes and make the turn you nearly passed. That never used to do that I've tried several settings options including dont allow zoom to no prevail.
Last night I sat in front of a gated community for 5 minutes trying to get the code from the customer and even backed up and let the map take me to another entrance which also was locked. I put the address in Google maps and the customer wasn't even in that neighborhood but the one next to it. I can go on and on but in the last yr id say the app has fallen down majorly
Matt Stoller, you are quick to blame Google for everything here but isn't the real idiot Noam for selling Waze in the first place? And now he's complaining about it! Oh, except I forgot, he made a shit tonne of money selling his company in the first place. So he can't really complain can he...
Noam did what was in the short-term interest of his investors and team. The point of public policy is to be sure that short-term interests for individuals don't harm the public. In this case, the public is clearly harmed (maps aren't as good and cost more because there's less competition.)
As someone who sold to a big company, I can assure you that the choice isn't always an easy one. In our case, if we hadn't sold, it was clear that they would have competed with us at a loss for as long as it took for us to fail. Not much of a choice, actually.
It sounds like you have an in-built assumption that the small company will always fail... unless public policy steps in. Do you actually believe there is no choice? Isn’t it a courageous act to fight against the odds? (Or do I watch too many movies?)
small companies don't always fail. But if, let's just say, Microsoft announces that they're going to give away the only product you sell, and there's no network effect at work, it's hard to see how you can make that bet.
the network effect gives little companies a chance to become big ones, but it also is a huge tool to allow big companies to protect against little ones.
the iPhone is the single most profitable product in the history of the world, and it will be that way for a while... free market theory would say that wouldn't last, but the network effect and lock in are hard to overcome.
It doesn't have to be the only product -- Netscape sold more than Navigator; they sold web servers and web development tools. But in including Explorer in every Windows deployment, Microsoft cut off the funds Netscape was using to build those other products, forcing Netscape into a (bad) acquisition by AOL.
(Had to google network effect and lock-in; genuinely appreciate the vocab expansion) I hate the idea that the innovator doesn’t always get to bring the innovation to the masses. Life’s not fair, yada yada. Maybe the innovator is now freed to work on a new problem or maybe they sit on their laurels and walk away with their check or maybe they grow despondent and give up.
I also dislike being forced to rely on government intervention as the only alternative. I’m not anti-gov, but gov doesn’t generally move fast.
When I get stuck between a rock and a hard place, I put my back flat against one side, legs against the other, and start climbing. (I know that’s just metaphor logic, but metaphors are mainly what I traffic in)
I think that without clearly seeing network effects and lock-in, as Matt has been writing about so eloquently, it's really hard to have a useful conversation about the future of anti-monopoly work.
And government is just another word for community action. Community action creating laws is why eye makeup doesn't make people blind and diet pills don't make people explode (any more). Worth looking up.
There are no well-functioning fully free markets in the world. However, there are small towns far from here where the government has no role whatsoever and my hunch is that you wouldn't want to live there. I don't.
I live in Wisconsin and have spent a good amount of time in the far reaches of the Upper Penninsula/Michigan where the main street of towns is composed of three or four collapsed buildings sitting beside a coffee shop.
Thanks for the responses. I appreciate it.
Interesting that you use the phrase "short-term". Despite that, Noam himself says (from the article), "Looking back, we could have probably grown faster and much more efficiently had we stayed independent."
So your point is invalid in this case. I know that these are all speculations and unknowns but he must have had an inkling even at the time that they could have gone it alone and succeeded. They had a unique selling point that google maps didn't - large user base sharing traffic data in real time for the benefit of all. Yes, google could have implemented that too, but Waze was the go-to name in this field and had critical mass protecting them. Just like Microsoft couldn't compete on video calls, they had to pay for Skype or the fact that google couldn't compete on video sharing and so had to buy youtube.
He knew selling Waze was an irreversible transaction and he took the money, got rich and did it anyway. No point crying over spilt milk and bemoaning the fact now...
It is completely delusional to think that this acquisition would have lead to a different outcome.
Next time, he may want to think things a bit more and calm down his inner greed, because, let's be clear, this was nothing more than good ol' greed.
Anyone who didn't see this coming when Google bought Waze is an idiot. Google has no use for two competing maps apps, with two different UIs, feature sets and basemaps. Give your head a shake Noam.
It's not Noam who is at fault, it's the FTC/DOJ for letting this merger happen.
Maps is an engineering marvel, without a doubt, but Waze is better for driving. Sometimes the app that does only one thing but does it very well will trump a super app that does everything.
I am disappointed in Google. Gone are the days when they supposedly baked in ethical engineering in their products.
What they are ignorant about is that there is a huge chunk of the 200 million waze users that are in the logistics and delivery sector of poorer countries and this would hurt if not cripple their operations.
Many drivers in developing countries that have chaotic traffic situations also need the superior rerouting and real time traffic assessment and crowd sourced road condition up updates the Waze provides.
Let's not forget they also took away Cookie Monster as navigator. That significantly lowered my fahrvergnügen!
Three points:
1. pre-installation is a lesser evil. The Google Mobile Services is the real problem that lock up the phone vendors and users into Google infrastructure
2. Noam sold the company to Google because of the bad relationships with his board: "Due to a bunch of mistakes early on, we did not own substantial amounts of equity and had a pretty bad relationship with some of our board members. I remember the bottom line: “wouldn't you rather work for Larry Page than our current board”? https://paygo.media/p/25171
3. His major complain against Google is his inability to fire people at his will and govern Waze as a sole authority. Not sure Google ruined Waze, it is still quite popular in many places and improving.
Although i definitely agree that monopolies are bad, in this specific case , i wouldn't fully rely on Noam that "could have probably grown faster and much more efficiently had we stayed independent."
My assumption was always that they bought Waze simply to keep it out of Apple's hands. If there was ever a company in desperate need of a better mapping app it's Apple.
I anticipated Waze was going to go downhill right away, just because Google has a tendency to ruin everything it touches. And it wasn't long before I was proven right. As soon as Google bought it, I started noticing changes: development became stagnant, issues complained about by tons of users were ignored (in typical Google/MS/standard large corporation fashion), many of the things that were changed were changed for the worse, the app became less stable, etc, etc, not to mention it just seemed like the dev team was suddenly in an impenetrable bubble and there was zero real communication anymore. I still use Waze for longer drives, because even with all its problems I prefer it over Google Maps for the alerts and just how it functions overall, but I primarily use Maps for local drives. And of course, since those are the two big map programs, and Google owns both of them, they have no incentive to really work on either, so neither one is nearly as good as it could/should be.
I have noticed in the last few months waze has gone to shit. Such as when you think you're making a turn at the next road and right before the turn it says "just kidding" and zooms in with the next turn 2 streets away. Other times it does the opposite and you think it'll zoom in again but it actually is zoomed in and you have to slam the brakes and make the turn you nearly passed. That never used to do that I've tried several settings options including dont allow zoom to no prevail.
Last night I sat in front of a gated community for 5 minutes trying to get the code from the customer and even backed up and let the map take me to another entrance which also was locked. I put the address in Google maps and the customer wasn't even in that neighborhood but the one next to it. I can go on and on but in the last yr id say the app has fallen down majorly
I still use Waze; it does what I need in the way I need to do it.
This is so true. I hate waze now every time I use it , it feels useless.