And this moment involves war
In 2020, I read a blog by Joe Morrison where he spoke about Jennings Anderson’s research on OSM and its sudden spike in Corporate contributors. My hunch at that point was that these contributors were inadvertently, simultaneously working toward destabilizing the Google Maps monopoly in the space (long overdue).
The pandemic ended, the surge in contributions subsided and things pretty much came back to normal. Until this month (July 2024), when Ola launched Ola Maps (a wrapper on OSM), Google cut prices (after a ~1400% hike) and Overture launched their beta. All in the midst of ever changing and improving AI models and tools.
The truth is, maps have never been the sexy, in-vogue topic of discussion in tech. They’re off in their own corner, with an almost cult-like community dedicated to their creation and utilization. The why is irrelevant, what matters is that this about to change. Over the next 5 years we’ll see a surge in companies working on tooling, data, analytics and products that either use or help in creating maps. The aforementioned undercurrents point toward a future in which maps will play a pivotal role in the evolution of consumer technology. And I want to discuss what these undercurrents are and the future they indicate.
Spacetech is coming full-circle
I am writing this on 29 July 2024, just a few hours after SpaceX’s starlink satellites entered orbit. The democratization of access to space, is going to open up Earth Observation (starlinks don’t do EO) and make satellite imagery more accessible than ever before. And if the existing trend (see Umbra) is any indicator, this is going to come with more transparent pricing models, faster delivery times and higher quality of open source imagery.
AI will get better. Duh.
This is obvious. But in the context of maps, we are nearly there with being able to vectorize satellite imagery on the fly. More satellites ⇒ More up-to date and more frequent imagery. Maps will reflect environmental and built-form changes as they happen (or at the frequency of imagery). We will be able to render reality as it changes.
You’ll be wearing your phone in 10 years
The first attempts at AI wearable devices made their appearance over the part year or so. And the most “successful” (loosely) of these attempts was definitely the Meta Glasses. Our vision is the most dominant sense, and its only logical that the next evolution in personal devices will focus on appending to that. Your next maps product will not be a screen with arrows and directions, but an extension of your vision. Which also means, that not only will you continue you to use these products for things like directions and finding places. But they will become an integral part of how you experience and engage with reality itself.
Decentralization will eat the gig-economy
We’ve already seen this play-out in the context of ridesharing in India. Namma Yatri decentralized the auto-rickshaw ride sharing space and has managed to, over the past few years capture significant market share from Uber and Ola in their target cities. And while the narrative for this is yet to play out completely in the Web3 context, we are seeing some of the first steps toward it.
The gig economy will evolve into its final form(long live the gig economy); into decentralized networks of independent agents. Coordination will happen at the protocol level and we will bootstrap economies of scale by incentivizing participation. The realization of this however, is predicated on the availability of an underlying foundational infrastructure. We have parts of this, in the form of ONDC, stablecoin payment rails, decentralized compute etc. But there are gaps, and they mostly pertain to our ability to connect the physical world to the digital in an exact manner.
Infinite, personalized versions of reality
All of this, along with a generative future powered by AI, means we will not just live in reality; we will constantly render infinite personalized versions of it. The foundation required for this, to match the speed at which we render versions of reality, to keep up with instant vectorization of satellite imagery, to service demand from different independent agents with specific needs; will lie in map-data. The steps taken by Ola, Overture or even Google Maps make this clear; we will need to geocode every element of reality and keep it perpetually up-to date, we will need layers upon layers of real-world data to train models.
The connection between the physical and digital worlds will need to become zero latency
Something that is impossible to do, unless we build a strong base-layer. The map wars are just starting, over the next year we’ll see these companies roll out devices, programs and products that attempt to geocode everything from buildings to grains of sand. And differentiation will be achieved not on the enterprise end (by servicing customers with the best products) but by optimizing for supply pipelines and coverage. In other words, the winners of this war will be those who can bring us closest to zero latency reality.
Personally, I believe that decentralization is the only way to achieve this goal. And that incentives are essential for making this happen. Which is why we choose to build a decentralized, user-generated, token-incentivized network of mappers at Proto.
The best way to get involved therefore, is to get started. Start mapping, find your niche, your style and build your moat. And if you need any help, we’re always available along the way.
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