Google is doing a lot of A and B testing right now. Some days I habe to use Bing or duckduckgo, no matter what, or else I get shit results.

It coincides with their switch to more and more "AI" black box models. Whereas before they would use a hand-tuned heuristic model to describe whether you are turning, merging, or continuing on a road, they just use a less correct but automagic model where they still inevitably have to tune it a whole lot but it is "AI" so it has the approval of the petty lords of management.

Incorrect entrances and closed roads are another example. They're just using satellite and street level imagery and tossing it at some models that spit out things like "door 99% confidence" and "road 98% confidence" while neglecting the question of, "are you actually allowed/able to use this?"

PS under basically every correct answer in this category is a team of poorly-paid "labelers" whose answers directly turn into the data in the map. Your door-that-is-not-an-entrance was marked entrance because someone making $8/hr only had 10 seconds to review before moving to the next question.

I haven't had any issues with Google maps recently, occasionally it'll try to take me on a more "fuel efficient" route. Recently my wife used apple maps and it took us to the wrong location, it kept trying to take us to Washington township when the address we entered was in Washington heights.

They switched from giving you the fastest route by default to giving you the one that uses the least gas.
They also now offer alternative routes that take you past businesses which paid money to Google.

Apparently everyone ITT has had 100 times more trouble with Google maps than I ever have had. Seriously entire categories of problems I've never experienced. Google maps has never tried to make me drive through a yard or field for example. Been using it since before it was a smartphone app.

I'd like to recommend 'Magic Earth' to everyone, who wants a privacy respecting Maps alternative with trafic data. I used it on several >500km trips and it only misguided me once. It uses OSM maps and can navigate offline.

In my experience, google maps is really bad at finding parking. OSM-data is just better in this regard

There's an option to prefer fuel saving routes, which are worse most of the time. This was a kinda recent chance and it is enabled by default, try to disable it and see if it helps

Yep. Multiple times I have had Google maps direct me to back employee only entrances instead of the regular entrances. Sometimes it seems like Google doesn't even recognize that the front entrance even exists.

All this talk about organic maps here on Lemmy does not feel organic at all.

Is there an ad campaign or something?

It's definitely been getting worse. The written directions aren't always accurate. Exits sometimes have the wrong label. Lanes are missing on the highways when they merge and separate.

I've also seen a similar thing with routes not always showing up or giving bad directions. It attempted to take me through a school bus barn and even through someone's yard once.

Am from Malaysia and since the road and street is named using local language(bahasa malaysia), google now read out the full road name in terrible accent and pronunciation it took 3 or 4 times longer to finish an instruction readout, which in some case you will miss your turn. The instruction sometime couldn't even fit on the UI because the road name is just so long. It also read out which lane you should take just for turning. Before the change i can easily navigate the confusing city of Kuala Lumpur because the instruction is clear and concise, now i have to fight with the instruction because 3rd quarter of the time it's a language i can't recognise due to the terrible pronunciation.

Ohh did i mention the ads? They found a way to sneak ads into navigation. Now if you want to turn left 500m ahead, instead of telling you "turn left" , they will tell you to turn left after "xyz shop". Now you will be looking for that shop instead of turn left. The app is maintained by techbros that never drive

Just like their search engine, making you scroll down further and potentially not even wanting you to leave their page, maps is trying to send you into the vicinity of more physically so you can go into their store and tell them that you found them along a route suggestion.

I don't think the above is true. At this point I'm just trying to give them ideas on how to enshittify it more.

Makes sense. Google has been replacing skilled engineers with tail-eating AI regurgitation engines, which are getting progressively worse as they eat their own shit.

But I've been told those regurgitation engines are about to get really smart and replace all skilled labor.

So maybe it'll be fine.

Or maybe, as we've already started to see, more and more useful stuff will only be available via the Internet wayback machine, until they kill it.

I was in New Mexico recently and Google Maps gave me a route from Bandelier National Monument to Santa Fe that included a “shortcut” through the Los Alamos National Laboratory campus. I got to meet a security guard.

So, yes. I would say I have experienced this.

Google/Waze will volunteer users to take alternative routes to scout out ways around congestion. It can be a better route, but you are the guinea pig, so you can get the short end of the stick.

There also is learned driving habits that may inform routing choices.

Organic Maps and OsmAnd is better.

Yeah, twice this month. It's taken me through a dirt road (where we got stuck in the mud) and a closed road. Its also told me to turn at places where I cannot or where I must not. I've also checked that the car directions are selected and not "bike" or something else.

I just took a trip and the estimated arrival time assumed I would drive 15mph over the limit without stopping the whole way.

Time to switch Gmaps to Organic Maps or Osmand. Both free and with offline navigation.

Absolutely. Not only does it show ads now, it's so busy that it's distracting and hard to keep track of your route.

Mine is fine, but somehow my wife's gives her the worst possible routes that are counter intuitive. We checked all settings about avoiding / not avoiding tolls, ferries, etc. She just some gets crap directions.