Canadian here from southern Ontario. I find OSM's maps to be great, no complaints there. But during summer there's basically constantly roads somewhere under construction, and there's very often lots of traffic congestion.

So I use Google Maps to route me to places I already know how to get to a lot of the time, like my dad's house in another town or even a place on the other side of the city I live in, not because I need the directions, but because I benefit from the live updates telling me not to go the way I normally would due to construction, accidents, congestion, etc. It'll sometimes save 20 minutes on a 60 minute trip!

I think if our car infrastructure was more stable, and if our car culture was more sustainable, I wouldn't need those features as much.

Using it for transit is virtually useless in my town because while it has bus stops and routes, it doesn't have schedules. The bus outside my house comes once every hour during some times of day, and still only every half hour during peak times, so it really matters if this hypothetical route is actually a viable route. I'm not going to wait 50 minutes when I could have walked to the connection in 20 just because the bus stop is close.

I think if our public transit system was healthier I wouldn't have to worry about frequency of service so much, and I wouldn't need to rely on Google's transit schedules as much.

Looking up businesses sometimes works, but usually if I'm looking up a business I want to know its hours, and at least in my town Google is basically always right, and everything else is no. So even if I was planning on using OSM to route there, I'd probably look it up on Google first to make sure it'll be open when I arrive, and that they're still in business at all!

It would be nice if businesses kept their own store up to date on OSM, but I get that they don't. And there are things like Street Complete trying to get community members to do it, but there's still just enough uncertainty that I'd rather check Google as a source of confidence.

I posted about this a couple days ago. I used to see Google mapping cars fairly frequently in the US, but not much anymore.

Not sure if they're doing this outside the US but here they seem to be trying to insert themselves into the online food ordering and reservation process. Not sure if they're using that data to help update their info.

They also have built in reviews where business owners can respond to them, so that likely incentivizes the business to provide updated info.

Google likely takes from OSM, but never in a way that is directly tracable, the legality of that is minefield they have to avoid stepping directly into.

Also I worked for Google as contractor doing map edits, they treat their employees like shit and in the last couple of years they have gutted all of their mapping talent... so I wouldn't necessarily trust Google Maps over OSM for long, Google Maps is a sinking ship.

I think Apple Maps treated their people a tiny bit better but idk.

OSM probably won't ever be able to "see" traffic jams

The only realistic way for that to happen is by tracking massive numbers of people's movement (via their phones) in real time.

Google (Android) and Apple (iphone) have the ability to do that without requiring those users to specifically opt-in or even know its happening.

Anyone else trying to do that live tracking would need a mass number of users to intentionally choose to be tracked. And I doubt that would ever happen.

I find it great and virtually never have to revert to Google Maps. But I live somewhere where the government publishes data on all the addresses and buildings in the country, and I know that data has been loaded in to OSM via automated scripts. I can imagine not having available freely street address data would make mapping the country a whole lot harder so places without that help probably have worse maps.

It really depends on how active the local community is on improving, detailing and correcting the open data of the region. I've been traveling a lot and always use OSM first. If I find a mistake I will try to find a moment to update or correct the data. Only for traffic jams I look up google traffic, because they source their data realtime from surveillance of their customers. Google uses many different sources, one being their local guides and people alerting google maps through the respective button in their apps. Off the roads OSM is waaay more detailed. When hiking google maps has no chance.

Living in Canada (East coast), it's mainly good in the populated centres and then is hit or miss in rural areas. It's also getting better constantly.

If it's not working great for you, you might want to think about contributing.

here in south korea, OSM is not bad in some areas but mostly unreliable for daily usage. i still depend on some proprietary map app sadly. would love to contribute at least my area but haven't had much time..

I can't find shit in Okinawa so I rarely use it.

They're both not totally up-to-date, but at least you can correct OSM.

Osm was really crappy two- three years ago where I live (europe) but now it is better than google maps, a lot has happened. Also, I go hiking and canoeing alot, and there is a lot more info on osm than on goggle now outside cities, like shelters, camping grounds, firepits, hiking trail, mtb-trails. I dont know if the outdoorspeople are good at updating osm.

In rural Northeastern Japan, OSM was basically worthless for finding and routing to businesses which is the main thing I'm doing if I have to be driving somewhere.

When on my motorbike, I'm using google maps to navigate. I usually use my car's built-in (domestic Japanese) navigation unless it's somewhere too new (it struggles in Eastern Tohoku coastal areas because of all the rebuilding and rerouting after the tsunami in 2011 and I can't be arsed to pay to have it updated).

A google car went by my house in the last two years (though I don't suspect we'll see another one for several more). It's important to note that that's not the only way they get data, though.

I've used Google in Tokyo, but not OSM so I can't compare the more urban areas.