Op-ed: Duopoly in digital mapping – Can web3 be the answer?

The pursuing is simply a impermanent station from Ali Husain, an advisor astatine Navigate.

While Web3 has offered an alternate to the dominance of Big Tech firms successful galore aspects of the exertion sector, it has yet to flooded the duopoly dominance of Google Maps and Apple Maps successful the integer mapping market. According to a study by Gitnux, this duopoly is maintained by the existing spot of Google and Apple’s marketplace stock and by their important resources, allowing them to make features similar Google Street View to the grade that different projects cannot compete.

The dominance of these 2 companies has besides forced others successful Big Tech to travel unneurotic to penetrate the market. Companies including Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon person agreed to signifier the Overture Maps Foundation to situation the dominance of Google and Apple successful the integer mapping space. In this context, wherever adjacent immoderate of the astir influential Big Tech companies are struggling to summation a coagulated foothold, tin Web3 supply the means to bring greater contention and innovation to the integer mapping market?

How is Big Tech domination depriving innovators?

Big Tech’s dominance of the marketplace has driven up costs for innovators. For example, Google and Apple Maps bash not supply entree to their underlying data. In presumption of Google Maps, app developers wage fees to Google via the Google Maps API per 1000 Google Maps searches. Apple charges developers for utilizing MapKit JS to embed its representation straight into their websites and applications.

These maps’ thoroughfare presumption features are besides often outdated, particularly successful much distant areas extracurricular of municipality centers. Although determination is country for improvement, precise fewer firms tin lucifer the resources of the tech behemoths, and arsenic such, some Google and Apple person small inducement to update the prime of their services successful these much distant areas.

This adds different furniture of outgo to the start-up process for galore entrepreneurs astatine a clip successful the concern improvement process wherever fiscal resources are limited. The Overture Maps Foundation is attempting to connection developers a cheaper alternate but inactive lone provides underlying data. There is simply a pressing request for further decentralization and a determination distant from Big Tech successful the integer mapping marketplace to bring adjacent greater savings to developers and innovators.

In summation to integer mapping, some Google and Apple predominate the smartphone market, with an established duopoly implicit the market for apps and browsers. This allows companies to supply their branded mapping work arsenic the default enactment for smartphone users and their different owned applications, furthering the duopoly and dominance of Big Tech.

Big Tech is besides capturing information gathered by smaller companies’ idiosyncratic contributions.. For example, Google acquired Waze for $1.1bn successful 2013, allowing the tech elephantine to integrate Waze features with Google Maps. In this case, Google itself benefitted, but the question remains: what did the assemblage of Waze users summation arsenic a result? This is wherever Web3 has the imaginable to supply solutions and reward users for their crowdsourced data.

Is Web3 the answer?

As with galore aspects of the exertion landscape, the cardinal Web3 characteristics of decentralization and giving powerfulness to extremity users supply the ground to situation the dominance of Big Tech successful integer mapping. Several firms person already begun attempts to physique decentralized mapping networks based connected blockchain. Such systems tin let extremity users to reap the tangible benefits from their information and besides go contributors to a planetary network.

Rather than needing to trust connected the immense and costly resources of Big Tech firms, Web3 projects tin utilize adjacent real-time idiosyncratic information submitted from dashcams, drones and different video devices from radical astir the world. Crowdsourcing user-generated imagery provides galore benefits, lowering overhead costs, arsenic firms don’t request to wage and equip a sizable fig of unit to question extended distances to seizure imagery.

Web3 tin besides empower users by allowing them to payment from their ain data. The sheer wealthiness of idiosyncratic information has facilitated Big Tech’s dominance successful the integer mapping abstraction they person gathered implicit time. To combat this, Web3 mapping platforms tin incentivize radical funny successful Web3 oregon community-driven mapping platforms to lend their information and imagery to assistance turn the task – arguably the precise pinnacle of decentralization and underpins the entirety of Web3.

What adjacent for the integer mapping market?

The question is not whether the imaginable is determination for Web3 to situation the dominance of Apple and Google successful the integer mapping market, but rather, what it volition instrumentality to utilize that potential. There is present a prime betwixt continuing with the presumption quo and allowing Big Tech to predominate this marketplace oregon opting for a new, innovative attack by utilizing blockchain technology. Given the outlined benefits of a Web3 mapping level for entrepreneurship, contention and idiosyncratic empowerment, the prime is clear.

The station Op-ed: Duopoly successful integer mapping – Can web3 beryllium the answer? appeared archetypal connected CryptoSlate.