As a long time proponent of avoiding dependencies in my software projects, it's often incredibly frustrating trying to find out how to do something yourself when that market has been taken over by services that really, really just want you to use their paid tools. Even the “open" and “free" paths can lead to dead ends in some SAAS product.
I’ve been working on some map based products/apps for a long while. While the map frameworks available on the various platforms such as iOS and Android are good, I do need to extend what they are capable of. Things like offline viewing of a map or custom appearances (such as topography) are just not available out of the box in these frameworks.
I am well aware of the steps required to render custom map tiles as I’ve done it in the past. Nowadays it seems like a wall has been thrown up around the tools and info needed to accomplish these sorts of tasks. I can find all sorts of documentation on how to generate the custom images necessary for offline map viewing or styling of my maps but inevitably at some point in my reading the path will lead to some paid tool/service.
These services are free to market themselves and charge for what they are offering. I’m not suggesting there is anything wrong with that. I’m sure it helps many people accomplish things quickly and “easily” however I prefer not to rely on others. I’ve seen enough in the past to want to control as much of my code as possible. I just prefer to do things myself whenever possible.
In the case of mapping tools I believe at some point in the past many these tools were freely available and widely known. Somewhere along the line, the tools were put behind a pay wall and the ladder pulled up so that thick skulled fools such as myself have to really dig to find out how to do this themselves.
I think on a more broad level this is similar to many things that used to be freely available but have now converted to a subscription. At some point we’re going to be paying for breathable air, aren’t we?
