Waze seems to be a growing popular choice for mapping amongst the youth and future users of maps. Will this affect Google Traditional Maps and Local guides? While I realize we can not guess the future, I’m curious about the communities, input if they were to guess the outcome.
I personally don’t think it will matter much. Over the years Google has incorporate features from Waze into Google Maps, but other than that, I don’t really see any other impact to Local Guides in general.
Now that the teams are merged (in plan? not quite sure about the timeline), and the two apps still kept separate, I doubt they’ll do anything to jeopardize each other. Most likely they’ll just stick to their lanes (heh) and keep doing what they’ve been doing.
I agree with @iyudhi on this one @TiffanyStockstill it is a good question, Waze has long been the testing ground for new ideas before they go into Maps.
Waze has continued to evolve as a pure navigator to get to a place where as Maps is the navigator plus it helps you find things to do, see and experience when you get there.