dragan Posted May 4, 2018 Share Posted May 4, 2018 https://mapsplatform.googleblog.com/2018/05/introducing-google-maps-platform.html Quote We’re simplifying our 18 individual APIs into three core products—Maps, Routes and Places, to make it easier for you to find, explore and add new features to your apps and sites. And, these new updates will work with your existing code—no changes required. We’ve heard that you want simple, easy to understand pricing that gives you access to all our core APIs. That’s one of the reasons we merged our Standard and Premium plans to form one pay-as-you go pricing plan for our core products. With this new plan, developers will receive the first $200 of monthly usage for free. We estimate that most of you will have monthly usage that will keep you within this free tier. With this new pricing plan you’ll pay only for the services you use each month with no annual, up-front commitments, termination fees or usage limits. And we’re rolling out free customer support for all. Beginning June 11, you’ll need a valid API key and a Google Cloud Platform billing account to access our core products. Once you enable billing, you will gain access to your $200 of free monthly usage to use for our Maps, Routes, and Places products. These are just excerpts from the above link (highlighting by me). This is annoying. Does that really mean, that I have to create an account for every single site I've ever built and used Google Maps, and give Google my credit card details? Forreal? Or - even worse: pester my clients and tell them to create an account for themselves and use their CC? This is terrible business logic, Google. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wbmnfktr Posted May 4, 2018 Share Posted May 4, 2018 At first I was kind of p*ssed because of that change but then after looking into my app console and API-key-collection I changed my mind. There are lots of API-keys I generated in the past for clients who now moved to agencies or did in-house development but still with my API-keys in their sites. I took the chance and let them know that I will delete/revoke the API-keys and that they have to create them on their own now. While GDPR/DSGVO on the rise we (as developers) have to and should let clients do more of this stuff. Creating accounts, creating API-keys, doing this and doing that... nope. I (personally) might assist clients but I will not create accounts or keys until the client clicked the the "Yes, I accept all your (Google, Twitter, Facebook) terms" for clients anymore. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragan Posted May 4, 2018 Author Share Posted May 4, 2018 Yeah, it's just that... non-techy persons are scared when you even mention tech lingo like "API key". They expect that we as developers handle all this stuff and don't bother them with it. I'm off to go reading some leaflet.js and Mapbox tutorials... 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wbmnfktr Posted May 4, 2018 Share Posted May 4, 2018 Sad but true. Don't forget: https://www.openstreetmap.org/ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LostKobrakai Posted May 4, 2018 Share Posted May 4, 2018 1 hour ago, dragan said: They expect that we as developers handle all this stuff and don't bother them with it. I can totally see why "getting an API key" should be a thing the developers do, but "taking the responsibility for using a 3rd party tool which is likely sending private data to a company in a non EU country" is something clients will have to deal with by the end of the month – especially if you're just a limited-time contractor creating the website for the client to run on their own afterwards. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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