Ask HN: Why did Google leave the GIS space?
I work as a devops guy new to the GIS space. I keep hearing how the current giant ESRI was worried about google entering the market with a GIS tool (like a professional google earth), but they never did.
I know they have the locations API, but they don't have a tool like qGIS or ArcGIS.
Does anyone have any insight as to why they didn't pursue entering the market? This is news to me. As recently as 2020 they seemed to be investing in geo. Not desktop projects but they are more of a cloud company. “GEO and Google Earth Engine announce funding for 32 projects to improve our planet” (July 2020)
https://earthobservations.org/article.php?id=447 There is a Google earth pro but they made it free. I believe they still have many people active in the GIS space developing products. For example they have a Google earth studio, which is an animation tool.
https://www.google.com/earth/studio/ Earth engine competes with esri datasets
https://earthengine.google.com/