The Enshittification of Gaia GPS

From YouTube

Gaia GPS has long been an integral part of trip planning and execution for Joan and me.

.
The UI of Gaia software is commendable, and its diverse range of map layers makes it particularly appealing to outdoor enthusiasts.

.
However, there’s been a noticeable shift in Gaia since the acquisition by the Borg Collective, previously known as Pocket Media, before becoming the Outside Interactive Inc. conglomerate. The software has started to show signs of bloat, bugs, and a departure from its original utility.

.
Having worked in software companies, I feared the arc it would take –

• The core people who made the company would leave and take their knowledge with them.
• The software would try to appeal to a larger market share by adding more “features,” which leads to bloat, bugs, and a generally less and less stable piece of software.
• More money gets charged for the arguably inferior product
• This could mean the software might lose its original appeal to its core audience and ultimately transform into a different product. Less Gaia and more AllTrails – Social Media and Data Mining Bugalo.

.
Three years later, it seems Outside Interactive Inc. follows this “classic” plan for Gaia.

It is a term called “enshittification.” And that’s where Gaia GPS seems headed.

To quote Cory Doctorow, the person who coined the term –

Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business |customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the |ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a “two-sided market”, where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, hold each hostage to the |other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them.

.

A reader passed along some troubling info about Gaia becoming not only more of a social media app, but a rather skeevy way of default sharing of information for any new tracks, waypoints, etc.

.
The TL;DR is that Gaia potentially shares new tracks and data unless you mark it as private. And based on their past behavior, I don’t trust them for legacy tracks.

.

Here is a compilation of information made. At his request there are no longer direct quotes.

.

After your account is automatically created, you can go here to update your settings to ‘private’.
“Account creation happens automatically after logging into GaiaGPS.com.
To change your activity to “private“, after your account has been created go to https://accounts.outsideonline.com/oidc-frontend/settings/privacy and update your settings for “Profile Privacy“, which was automatically set to “Public“, and “Activity Privacy“, which was automatically set to “Everyone“.

Mor suspect e past privacy behavior for , for Gaia GPS
The app has a new Product Lead, he did an introduction post on the Gaia sub a few days ago where users can share their opinions about the direction Outside Interactive Inc plans to take Gaia GPS.

Here’s another post with a link to submit feedback.

..
I find these new “features” problematic because of privacy issues, safety issues, and potential impact on sensitive cultural and ecological areas.

.
An ethical company would make it so you have to opt-in by default, not make things public by default. It’s data mining, pure and straightforward, despite what corporate mouthpieces may state.

.
The corporate mouthpiece said the quiet part out loud –

The only way to get more accurate data, is to have a community that is contributing in real-time to improve that data constantly.

.

In other words, Outside Inc. has a vested interest in mining data to “improve” the product, but in reality, it is farming its user base to make more money. They want you to jump through hoops to make your data private by default. And for a product getting increasingly more expensive each year at that!

.

The corporate mouthpiece even said “too bad” –

And you can set your default to Private. That’s my whole point, is that you have control over this. Simply go to your settings, then choose Default Privacy and Activity, and choose private. We offer a big link to do this in one of the required New Features screens before the user can even use the app.

.
And, yes, a person can opt-out in a few easy steps.

However, the average user is not expecting to have to opt out nor is readily aware of the information, especially if they don’t use the web-based functionality of Gaia vs. the app.
As one Redditor put it –

– As a product guy, you should know very well the pernicious power of defaults. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/the-power-of-defaults/

.

Shame on Outside Inc.!

In summary – Please fix the initial sharing settings!

As much as many of us aren’t happy about having a social media feed linked to a mapping app, it is the automatic opt in making us angry.

Gaia is a great app overall. Please don’t ruin it.

.
What to do?

.
I am going to start looking for a new primary app eventually.
It is a shame, as Avenza and CalTopo fit a niche for Joan and me, but we’ll miss the UI and (crucially) map layers available.

.
The first step will require some organizational heavy lifting to organize and then export the tracks, but luckily, it is not hard overall –

“Online select the waypoints and add to a named folder. Then browse to that folder and data export.
Waypoint -> Folder -> Export

.
Enshittifcation is the way the world works in our corporatist environment. When the tools no longer work how you need them to, they no longer make a helpful tool.
It is time to get a new tool in my kit as Outside Interactive Inc. is making an increasingly less useful one.