Furthermore, there's a payola scheme behind the scenes, to make sure automakers implement it in their infotainment systems and stuff, which they hope will force others to license it.
It's a great idea, a mediocre implementation, and a set of business practices that make the antichrist jealous.
On top of that, their bloodthirsty pursuit of any criticism means that legitimate discussions of the system's flaws can't happen in the open. The lack of that criticism may have encouraged some services to adopt W3W without realizing its flaws, and there's already some hinting that such a flaw may have already interfered with actual rescue operations:
Thankfully the rescue was able to proceed once they switched to another coordinate system, and that case didn't result in a fatality. How many other such cases are there? We might never know. The company may have literal blood on its hands at this point, but fixing the flaws would require discussing them first, which we can't do as long as they're empowered to shut down discourse.
It's a great idea, a mediocre implementation, and a set of business practices that make the antichrist jealous.
On top of that, their bloodthirsty pursuit of any criticism means that legitimate discussions of the system's flaws can't happen in the open. The lack of that criticism may have encouraged some services to adopt W3W without realizing its flaws, and there's already some hinting that such a flaw may have already interfered with actual rescue operations:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56901363
Thankfully the rescue was able to proceed once they switched to another coordinate system, and that case didn't result in a fatality. How many other such cases are there? We might never know. The company may have literal blood on its hands at this point, but fixing the flaws would require discussing them first, which we can't do as long as they're empowered to shut down discourse.