Google Maps pricing changes threaten APRS site The popular amateur radio APRS tracking site aprs.fi run by Heikki Hannikainen OH7LZB is threatened by changes to the Google Maps pricing model Heikki Hannikainen OH7LZB writes: For some time this morning, Google Maps on aprs.fi displayed a pop-up saying "This page can't load Google Maps correctly". The map tiles were dark with "For Development Purposes Only" written on them. This was because of a configuration accident on my part: the aprs.fi profile on Google Cloud console was not properly linked to the correct payments profile which has my credit card attached. That's now fixed and the maps load fine. For a short while. Due to the volunteer / charitable / non-profit uses in Amateur Radio circles (SAR, disaster relief, etc) aprs.fi has had a generous free use limit from Google, even after the pricing went up in 2012. With the recent pricing model changes for Google Maps APIs, the free use quota got lost. It was a bit uncertain whether it'll stay there or not, now it's obvious it's gone. I'm trying to reach out to them and see if it can be reinstated, or if a generous volume discount can be applied. If someone has insider Google contacts who are amateur radio operators, please email me and them in private. If not, I might be looking at a bill of 4000-5000€ per month, which obviously is something that I can't do. The billing has now started, and I got a small credit for the transition & try-out period, which will last for a few days, and I can pay the bill for a few more days after that. To reduce the loads a bit, I'll be disabling the Embedded maps feature right now. There is a risk that I'll have to replace Google Maps with something, but it'll be a development effort which will take quite some time, and the end result might not be quite as smooth; the Maps API has been pretty great. Source aprs.fi forum https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/aprsfi/iXm72OZ0ML8/GTfaAXB-CAAJ Heikki Hannikainen OH7LZB http://he.fi/ https://twitter.com/hessu Information on the Automatic Packet Reporting System can be found at http://www.aprs.org/ http://www.southgatearc.org/news/2018/july/google-maps-pricing-changes-threaten-aprs-site.htm
This change is impacting everyone who uses Google Maps - PSK Reporter recently had to change their maps (https://pskreporter.info/pskmap.html) and personally, my company had to change the way we push out weather maps by making it incumbent on the content provider to use their own maps key / api.
https://www.dxmaps.com has recently transitioned away from google maps for the same reason. He was unable to obtain reasonable not-for-profit/public service pricing. See his announcement: https://www.dxmaps.com/spots/osmversion.html
