Magic Earth
www.magicearth.com
Where smart navigation meets open roads. Privacy first, by design.

I just found out that the latest upgrade of magic earth no longer works in the car, it now requires a subscription. Still works on the phone, but having it in the car display is just better.

So is there an alternative that does what waze/magicearth does that you know of? I’m thinking about the real time traffic and hazards update mostly.

  • woelkchen@lemmy.world
    8·
    13 days ago

    it now requires a subscription.

    I think that’s wrong. I only see a one-time payment on https://www.magicearth.com/pricing . 1 year fee of 6 Euro, then 15:

    That said, they might shoot themselves in the foot with this. For those who don’t know: The company’s business model is or used to be to sell their services to car infotainment and similar industries. The free version for phones was their way to gather a big user base that contributes traffic and incident data.

    Maybe their industry customer base collapsed. I don’t know but with this move there is serious risk they’re chasing away users and therefore the quality of the data decreases.

  • crank0271@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    13 days ago

    I had just signed up via the mobile app a couple weeks ago for the free trial, renewing at $1/year thereafter. They sent several notifications (or emails, can’t remember) about the price going up soon. Hopefully the old pricing will be honored unless cancelled.

    I had been looking for a privacy-respecting alternative to Google Maps / Apple Maps that has real time traffic info. Hopefully, as @woelkchen@lemmy.world suggested, the quality of that data doesn’t degrade too much due to chasing away users / their data sources.

    • crank0271@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      11 days ago

      Just wanted to follow up on this. It shows I was billed $1 today but next year it will renew at $20/year. I’m going to contact them to confirm, and I’m not against paying $1.66/month for a privacy-respecting navigation app with real time traffic info, but the ol’ switcheroo is a little much for me.

  • mech@feddit.org
    32·
    12 days ago

    Requiring a subscription for a service that costs money to provide is NOT enshittification.
    You either have to pay with your wallet or your data.

    • CAVOK@lemmy.worldOP
      31·
      12 days ago

      They took away functionality and locked it behind a subscription. How is that not enshittification?

      I was providing data. Now I’m not.