Google maps is doing the same thing to local business success that social media algorithms are doing to political success. The algorithm controls what you perceive as the consensus of others. It is a dangerous world to have such power so highly concentrated.
Very interesting. But I wonder how much Google (and other) Maps can actually shape the scene. For tourist hotspots with a lot of visitors, it IS clearly the driving force. But for locals, I don’t think it has an overwhelming effect. Locals know their restaurants and they visit them based on their own rating. They could explore total strange and new ones, but then they will form their own rating and memory immediately and will not get fooled/guided by algorithm (the next time)
Interesting work, but ultimately silly: of course google maps ranks results. No one (yes, yes, I'm sure like 3 people) want a list of all results, unordered or ordered by something useless like name, when they type in restaurant. And I cannot put into words how uneager I am to have the city or state government manage what comes up when I put indian or burrito into a map.
Where in the post do you see the author arguing about "a list of all results"? To me, it merely draws attention to the fact that there is only one algorithm available in Google Maps, and you rely on Google to calculate "relevance" based on (to us) unknown and intransparent metrics. It draws attention to the kind of power Google has over businesses and our daily lives, without necessarily presenting alternatives. Nothing about that is "silly". It might be more relevant to me to learn about new, small, independent restaurants, but I don't have that choice. If I had access to the full data set, like e.g. OSM, I would.
> No one (yes, yes, I'm sure like 3 people) want a list of all results, unordered or ordered by something useless like name
That's not what the author was suggesting (or indeed, what they built). They were trying to untangle the positive feedback bias showing up first in the rankings gives.
I think there's probably a lot more to untangle, but as a first pass it's super cool!
It's the feigned surprise and sort of attitude that google is doing something malicious or it's a subterfuge. Starting with a bolded "Google Maps Is Not a Directory. It’s a Market Maker." and inishing with eg
> the most important result isn’t which neighbourhood tops the rankings - it’s the realisation that platforms now quietly structure survival in everyday urban markets.
For any service like this, _of course_ ranking is at the core of it. A more honest article could have started there, eg "since you can't display all results, and doing so is useless to everyone, the heart of these products is their ranking algorithm and choices. Let's examine Google's."
That might just be a feature of the area though.
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