Out of context: Reply #104
- Started 15 years ago
- Last post 5 months ago
- 149 Responses
- kingsteven5
Old web developer yells at cloud moment here...
Very nearly got stung by Google Maps API charges on a festival site I run. Would have been >$1k if I din't catch it and replace the API generated maps with standard iframe embeds (which took about an hour of my time)...
I don't expect service for free but this whole $200 free credit p/m totally excludes me from doing anything creative with maps in a web design setting. Everything these days is priced like "use our paid app startup to create your own paid app startup" and it's like a fucking pyramid scam for creative stagnation...
Going to clients like "oh, for this feature you'll have to pay 1 cent per pageview per API call if you get over 20,000 views in a month." just doesn't work for anything outside the paid app use case. For festival sites which have incredibly high traffic in one month and dead for the rest of the year i'm constantly getting the raw end... Same goes for hosting, I put all my festival sites on my ancient MT grid account because it's fixed price, can deal with the spikes and works out cheaper over a year than AWS would in the week of launch.
- Fuck Google.
Go Openstreetmap - heck, you can even download an SVG from them and roll your own.Nairn - we started using static images and a simple js what pulls the map if the visitor actually needs it.sted
- we have 135 venues this year and we had geocoding/ multiple locations on maps before we switched to the iframe embeds... considered openstreetmap but would havekingsteven
- to add half the venues to their db to get it to work + doesn't quite have the coverage in rural ireland i needed / the creative possibilities google maps has.kingsteven
- it's just a pity that google have chosen a spotifyesque BS pricing structure which makes it impossible to give a flat fee for running a website.kingsteven
- the reason a lot of these clients stick with me is because they have other shit to worry about and i make it simple.kingsteven
- i'd love to say it's classic bait and hook, but google maps must cost a shitload to run in server time alone. then again i never forgave them for changing mapshans_glib
- And google wonders why devs are leaving their environment. They do this shit all the time.section_014
- Wonder how much Uber or Lyft or other location based apps pay google to use those fucking maps api or something :))grafician
- yeah not quite bait and hook, not quite total monopolisation but $1k for 200,000 requests in 1 month vs $0 for the same over 5 months is not fair pricingkingsteven
- for professional use outside the paid / ad funded app use case.kingsteven
- If you can find or build a cheaper solution you should go for it, and share!zarkonite
- Screen record your google maps zooming into the locations. Upload to YouTube. Embed videos where map would be required. Google now pays you.shapesalad
- Fuck Google.