I would wager that corporate participation in OSM is less about directly monetizing souped-up versions of OSM data provided as modern web services and more about desperately avoiding the existential conflict of having to pay Google for the privilege of accessing their proprietary map data.⁵

The article was a really good read! I liked this part, though as a user the licensing costs are hard(er) to imagine when the companies involved have the money (though maybe not in incentive?).

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out, as I don’t think anyone puts anything past Facebook when it comes to making a profit.