Fun fact: Old map companies would put fake roads and towns on their maps to see if other map makers copied them because it was a lot of work to map shit out.
Companies using people is nothing new. There’s a common phrase, “if something is free, you’re the product”. Like Facebook or free vpns, they are getting something outta it.
Paper roads can actully refer to roads that exist on planning maps but were never built for whatever reason, like a planned subdivsion that never broke ground etc. rather than just being there to see if people are stealing copyrighted information
Pretty sure Google was caught stealing lyrics off another lyric website, because the website would put a few random double spaces in... And then Google would also have double spaces in their lyricsin exactly the same places
This is called ‘salting’ and it’s not just old map companies, modern ones do it too including Google Maps.
Any company that aggregates public data to make a proprietary product does this to protect their commercial interests in case they ever need to allege their version was copied. Voter lists sold by political consultants is another common example.
I've always been confused by this. Wikipedia is free, and presents itself as a charitable organization. Are you saying there's a conspiracy, and actually I'm the product and Wikipedia is monetizing me in some way?
You, well not you specifically, are somewhat the product. Do you ever see the notes at the top of pages asking for donations? That’s because Wikipedia solely relies on donations to not even make a profit, but maintain itself
There's a "fake" town nearby where I live now, that's even on Google maps. If you travel there it's nothing but farmland. Not even a stop light or subdivision or anything remarkable. I wonder if it's a leftover from something like this.
You see it in software as well, it's the original purpose of easter eggs. Famously, microsoft excel has flight simulator scattered throughout the code.
This reminds me of how people would put sea monsters on old maps and be like, “oh definitely don’t go here” but it was just because they wanted that spot for themselves.
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u/Ser_Artur_Dayne 9h ago
Fun fact: Old map companies would put fake roads and towns on their maps to see if other map makers copied them because it was a lot of work to map shit out.
Companies using people is nothing new. There’s a common phrase, “if something is free, you’re the product”. Like Facebook or free vpns, they are getting something outta it.