Reconsider new subscription model and prices

[scaidermern]

It looks like there are new subscription models with a huge price increase, especially for (hourly) live updates:

I guess you have valid reasons for this price increase since infrastructure and labor won't come for free. However please consider that many mappers "need" the OsmAnd live feature. It allows them to efficiently contribute to OpenStreetMap by having up-to-date map data. This avoids creating duplicated POIs and enables mappers to instantly differentiate between current and outdated information.

While most mappers "need" OsmAnd live, many of them won't need the OsmAnd cloud feature. The OsmAnd cloud feature is probably the one which contributed to this price increase I guess.

Please take into account that active mappers are the one big reason why OpenStreetMap and OsmAnd are a big success. Without them, OsmAnd wouldn't exist and won't survive. Give mappers a chance to use your live feature without having to pay a huge amount of money. Otherwise there is the possibility that map edits and map quality will decrease, thus making OsmAnd less useful.

There are several options to solve this conflict:

• Move the hourly map update feature from the pro version to the plus version
• Alternatively, reduce the price for the pro version
• Alternatively, offer a third subscription model including the plus features and the live update feature
• Alternatively, offer a discount or free live update feature for active mappers (mappers with a certain number of edits per year or a certain number of active mapping days per year)

[DP24PH]

As a mapper myself and Civil Engineering student, I would like to reconsider the option to offer either discounted or free live update feature since it would be only the way to validate the edit in a timely manner. Likewise, it would rather incentivize the active mappers' contribution as well to maintain the quality of the OSM-based database.

[vshcherb]

Thank you for feedback. Indeed the things are not set in stone yet.

• The main aspect of this change to standardize offer solution and set it for next 5 years. You've correctly mentioned 2 products: OsmAnd Pro (only subscription) & Maps+.

• Main aspect: we don't want to introduce 3rd package.

• Indeed we need to introduce OsmAnd live package for mappers and probably make it available even without Maps+. For the time being we've considered F-Droid version for mappers cause it's available for free. Though some mappers still would like to support OsmAnd development for example.

• We can't provide OsmAnd Live with Maps+ package cause it's available as 1 time payment (that costs 2013-2017 only 5 EUR).

As a summary I see:

• Provide a reasonable subscription of (7-10 EUR per month), so more people could afford supporting OsmAnd development (even if they are fine with OsmAnd+).
• Provide a solution that active mappers could have unlimited Maps & Live Maps download. That could be measured by user monthly / yearly activity somehow.

[scaidermern]

something like:

1. specific amount of routing/directions/navigation are included in  the basic package

2. if you use navigation/directions more often you need to buy an additional subscription for that.

In NL we have this saying:"the gebruiker betaald" which basically means - the more you
use a service, the more you pay for that service.

This approach is not an option for an app targeted at offline usage. Also, route calculation happens on the device and not on the OsmAnd server. So using OsmAnd more often doesn't increase the cost for running the OsmAnd server infrastructure.

Daily and hourly live updates are a different thing, though. They need a good server infrastructure and are probably rather expensive to maintain. It is perfectly fine to charge more for this feature. However there should be an alternative solution for active mappers, especially in countries with low income.

[thompehw]

@vshcherb

• Provide a solution that active mappers could have unlimited Maps & Live Maps download. That could be measured by user monthly / yearly activity somehow.

Sorry if everyone knows this, but there is a a precedent: active mappers can join OSMF for free: https://join.osmfoundation.org/active-contributor-membership/

Again, it's self-interest not charity: if OSMF has a lot of members who are genuine mappers then it is more resistant to takeovers.

[vshcherb]

I would summarize again based on different opinions.

• OsmAnd Live updates will be included in OsmAnd Pro.
• For OSM active mappers (active means at least 3-10 changes for previous 2 months) OsmAnd Live will be available for Free! Somehow, solution is being developed.
• OsmAnd Pro will include Backup plan and some newly developed features, so OsmAnd Pro will not be cheap cause it has direct cost on OsmAnd Cloud
• If user wants to support OsmAnd development but doesn't need OsmAnd Cloud (Pro), he could purchase Maps+ year subscription.
• Eventually all features (advanced widgets / features) except (OsmAnd Live & OsmAnd Pro) will be migrated to Maps+ / OsmAnd+ package. But there will be always small difference in functionality between Pro & Maps+ (we approximate that new features will be exclusive for Pro for about 3-12 months).

Feedback is welcome again.

[scaidermern]

Sounds good!

[scaidermern]

If you don't want to implement the "active contributor" query yourself: Maybe you can talk to Pascal Neis and ask if it is possible to get this data from How did you contribute? via an API or periodic dumps.

[vshcherb]

We have our own computation, you can check validity of it on https://osmbtc.org/

[vshcherb]

Please try Mappers benefit in OpenStreetMap Editing Plugin

[Lee-Carre]

@duiveldoder

Anyway — here I'm in a 360k city, with around it another 600k people. Over an area 30×30km and I'm the only active mapper here.

Yikes. I thought Jersey was bad: ~108k population (& increasing rapidly), 45 square miles (yup; we have quite the housing crisis), ~2 locals contributing regularly (including myself).

Are you willing to identify which city? I'm curious to inspect it.

I dare to say — even when 100 active mappers suddenly would come to the city and join me mapping everything in detail — it's going to take at least 10 years to get even close to the basics 100% mapped…

Not even thinking about all-details here… 10+ years for 100 mappers to get the basics done.

It's an enormous task really — especially since the government quite often isn't forthcoming and as I have some contacts to local government — they quite often have even less data available than I already have collected…

it's gigantic the task here — and impossible for "armchair" mappers to do anyway…

Oh, I feel your pain. Especially re government (on which I won't even get started; that would be a long & strongly-worded rant).

One reason I opted for surveying, is that about as much as can be done via armchair has already been done. Lots of buildings are missing, but landuse & highways are mostly done. The map is usable (for general navigation), at least. Rather than the mostly-blank canvas which it sounds like you have.

However, because much of that was done without GNSS traces to properly align imagery, there's a lot of misalignment (sometimes by several metres), which will need to be corrected in future. Makes placement of some features difficult; do I match to existing map-data, or GNSS position?(!)

Imagery is so lacking (with no prospect of improvement) that I've spoken with drone pilots about the possibility of them contributing to OAM. Trouble is, that one is never far from the airport (EGJJ), here, and the cost of the now-required certifications is, so I'm told, on the order of £2000 (but, they throw in lunch(!) 😄🤦‍♂️). That's on top of the price of equipment.

Aside from small features, a common effect of all the from-imagery mapping is that footpaths are marked as a straight-through path, since the resolution of imagery isn't sufficient to see where there are stairs. So much so that there are occasional notes added by accountless users, pointing out such snags (sometimes amusingly so; see note #2890362, for example).

even a once/year update would do

Well, the problem then would be that users may have to wait 11 months to see a change. So, monthly seems a good trade-off. However, if truly nothing changes month-to-month, then that might warrant a mechanism to inform clients (one possibility is to simply not publish new map files if they're no different to last month, or have a URL that always points to the latest version but which returns an HTTP 304 Not Modified unless there's an update, possibly also publishing (MD5) checksums for comparing versions).

[l29ah]

Tried it, it says that map updates are available to me, but i can't seem to find the way to actually download the maps: the map list still only shows maps that updated at march 1st.

[tommycrock]

@l29ah it usually takes about a week where I am for new maps to be generated at the start of the month. Areas with less data get new maps faster. The only way to get more up-to-date vector maps is with live maps, or generating your own using MapCreator.

[thompehw]

I noticed that the "available until" date of map updates for mappers (in the OSM editing plugin) wasn't changing and wondered how it was calculated. From what I have found from searching the code repository (I'm no expert) the current date of 16 Feb is just written into the code.

Does anyone know about the long-term intentions? It's sometimes called a "mappers' benefit" but in the code "PROMO" is also used.

Personally, I prefer this as a way of rewarding mappers than the bitcoin scheme (which I would never consider subscribing to), but I understand that OsmAnd must be careful to understand the financial effects.

[Lee-Carre]

Perhaps the algorithm is a work-in-progress, and the hardcoded date will be bumped every so often?

Unless it's to test behaviour of when the date is exceeded.

[Lee-Carre]

Noticed, today, that mine now reads 16 Mar, so if it was hardcoded, it isn't anymore.

Are you sure that you didn't just find the strings which are (conditionally) output? A link to where in the code you were looking, would help.

[thompehw]

Yes, mine has incremented by a month too. Hooray! Thanks, OsmAnd devs!

@Lee-Carre this is just out of casual interest now as there is clearly nothing to worry about, but I was looking in OsmAnd/OsmAnd/src/net/osmand/plus/plugins/osmedit/fragments/MappersFragment.java

I know C so I can usually guess what Java means, but I now guess that checkLastChanges increments the month by 1 (with the rest of the date hard-coded) rather than the "1" signifying February!

Just out of curiosity, I'd be interested to know what condition triggers the increment - I haven't spotted it.

Best wishes.

[Lee-Carre]

Another factor to consider is if a mapper has applied to receive cryptocurrency (Bitcoin, or whatever it may be in future) from OsmAnd for their contributions to OSM.

I've deliberately not done so, in order that OsmAnd keep more (or it goes to mappers who need it). In some sense, this could be considered an indirect donation.

[rugk]

Is that cryptocurrency payout to contributors even still live? If I go to https://osmand.net/osm_live this redirects to https://osmbtc.org/, which has a certificate error and even if that is dismissed for testing, it just serves the usual OSM website.

[rugk]

Okay opened osmandapp/web#310 for that.